Distill vs Attenuate - What's the difference?
distill | attenuate |
(lb) To subject a substance to distillation.
(lb) To undergo or be produced by distillation.
(lb) To make by means of distillation, especially whisky.
(lb) To exude in small drops.
:
(lb) To impart in small quantities.
(lb) To extract the essence of; concentrate; purify.
*
*:Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
(lb) To trickle down or fall in small drops; ooze out.
*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
*:Soft showers distilled , and suns grew warm in vain.
*Sir (Walter Raleigh) (ca.1554-1618)
*:The Euphrates distilleth out of the mountains of Armenia.
(lb) To be manifested gently or gradually.
(lb) To drip or be wet with.
To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
* 1874 , , Far From the Madding Crowd , ch. 40:
To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
* 1899 , , His New Mittens , ch. 4:
* 1906 , , The Malefactor , ch. 1:
To weaken.
* Coleridge
* Sir F. Palgrave
To rarefy.
* 1901 , , The First Men in the Moon , ch. 23:
(medicine) To reduce the virulence of a bacteria or virus.
(electronics) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical signal.
(botany, of leaves) Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
----
As verbs the difference between distill and attenuate
is that distill is (lb) to subject a substance to distillation while attenuate is to reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.As an adjective attenuate is
(botany|of leaves) gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.distill
English
Alternative forms
* distil (Commonwealth)Verb
(en verb)Derived terms
* distill an interface * distill out * distillable * distiller * distillery * distillmentattenuate
English
Verb
(attenuat)- A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.
- Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.
- Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.
- The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts.
- We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
- "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."