Dwindle vs Attenuate - What's the difference?
dwindle | attenuate |
To decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size.
* 1802 , , translated by T. Paynell,
(figuratively) To fall away in quality; degenerate, sink.
* Jonathan Swift
* 1919 ,
* '>citation
To lessen; to bring low.
* Thomson
To break; to disperse.
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.
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In lang=en terms the difference between dwindle and attenuate
is that dwindle is to decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size while attenuate is to rarefy.As verbs the difference between dwindle and attenuate
is that dwindle is to decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size 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.dwindle
English
Verb
(dwindl)- [E]very thing that was improving gradually degenerates and dwindles away to nothing,
- The flattery of his friends began to dwindle into simple approbation.'' (''Goldsmith , Vicar, III)
- Religious societies, though begun with excellent intentions, are said to have dwindled into factious clubs.
- The larger the empire, the more dwindles the mind of the citizen.
- Our drooping days are dwindled down to naught.
- (Clarendon)
References
attenuate
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."