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Attenuate vs Decease - What's the difference?

attenuate | decease |

As verbs the difference between attenuate and decease

is that attenuate is to reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree while decease is to die.

As an adjective attenuate

is (botany|of leaves) gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.

As a noun decease is

(formal) death.

attenuate

English

Verb

(attenuat)
  • To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
  • * 1874 , , Far From the Madding Crowd , ch. 40:
    • A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.
  • To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
  • * 1899 , , His New Mittens , ch. 4:
    • Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.
  • * 1906 , , The Malefactor , ch. 1:
    • Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.
  • To weaken.
  • * Coleridge
    • The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts.
  • * Sir F. Palgrave
    • We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
  • To rarefy.
  • * 1901 , , The First Men in the Moon , ch. 23:
    • "It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our circumstances and surroundings—great loss of weight, attenuated but highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid sky—was exciting my companion unduly."
  • (medicine) To reduce the virulence of a bacteria or virus.
  • (electronics) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical signal.

    • Antonyms

    * amplify (electronics)

    Derived terms

    * attenuation * attenuable

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (botany, of leaves) Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
    • ----

    decease

    English

    Noun

    (death) (-)
  • (formal) death
  • (obsolescent) Departure, especially departure from this life

    • Verb

    (deceas)
  • To die.
  • *, II.17:
    • After which usurped victorie, he presently deceased : and partly through the excessive joy he thereby conceived.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Usage notes

    The noun and verb forms are much less commonly used than the participial adjective "deceased," particularly outside formal, literary, or legal usage.