attenuate

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The Word of the Day for December 2 is: 

attenuate   \uh-TEN-yuh-wayt\   verb
          1 : to make thin or slender
    *2 : to lessen the amount, force, magnitude, or value of : weaken
     3 : to reduce the severity, virulence, or vitality of

Example sentence:
          The use of computers, with their quiet keyboards, has greatly 
attenuated the noise level of the office, but Dee misses the sound of clacking 
typewriters.

Did you know?
          "Attenuate" ultimately comes from a combination of the Latin prefix 
"ad-," meaning "to" or "toward," and "tenuis," meaning "thin." It has been on 
the medical scene since the 16th century, when a health treatise recommended 
eating dried figs to attenuate bodily fluids. That treatment might be outmoded 
nowadays, but "attenuate" is still used in medicine to refer to procedures that 
weaken a pathogen or reduce the severity of a disease. Most often, though, 
"attenuate" implies that something has been reduced or weakened by physical or 
chemical means. You can attenuate wire by drawing it through successively 
smaller holes, or attenuate gold by hammering it into thin sheets. You can even 
attenuate the momentum of a play by including too many costume changes. 





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