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Attenuate vs Enfeeble - What's the difference?

attenuate | enfeeble |

In transitive terms the difference between attenuate and enfeeble

is that attenuate is to rarefy while enfeeble is to make feeble.

As an adjective attenuate

is gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.

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.
    • ----

    enfeeble

    English

    Verb

    (enfeebl)
  • To make feeble.
  • * 2014 , Michael White, " Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe", The Guardian , 8 September 2014:
    • In the face of enfeebled , self-harming opposition on both sides of the border (and a miserable economic recession on both sides too) he has performed brilliantly.
  • * 1774, Dr Samuel Johnson, Preface to the Works of the English Poets , J. Nichols, Volume II, Page 130,
    • "...the gout, with which he had long been tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers of nature."

    Synonyms

    * weaken