different between stretch vs attenuate

English

Etymology

From Middle English strecchen, from Old English stre??an (“to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate”), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (“to stretch, make taut or tight”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)treg-, *streg-, *treg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with West Frisian strekke, Dutch strekken (“to stretch, straighten”), German strecken (“to stretch, straighten, elongate”), Danish strække (“to stretch”), Swedish sträcka (“to stretch”), Dutch strak (“taut, tight”), Albanian shtriqem (“to stretch”). More at stark.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st??t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Verb

stretch (third-person singular simple present stretches, present participle stretching, simple past and past participle stretched or (obsolete) straught or (obsolete) straight)

1. (transitive) To lengthen by pulling.

2. (intransitive) To lengthen when pulled.
   • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects

     The inner membrane […] because it would stretch and yield, remained unbroken.

3. (transitive) To pull tight.

4. (figuratively, transitive) To get more use than expected from a limited resource.

5. (figuratively, transitive) To make inaccurate by exaggeration.

6. (intransitive) To extend physically, especially from limit point to limit point.

7. (intransitive, transitive) To extend one’s limbs or another part of the body in order to improve the elasticity of one's muscles

8. (intransitive) To extend to a limit point

9. (transitive) To increase.
10. (obsolete, colloquial) To stretch the truth; to exaggerate.

11. (nautical) To sail by the wind under press of canvas.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

12. (slang, transitive, archaic) To execute by hanging.
13. To make great demands on the capacity or resources of something.

Translations

See also

• pandiculate

Noun

stretch (plural stretches)

1. An act of stretching.

2. The ability to lengthen when pulled.

3. A course of thought which diverts from straightforward logic, or requires extraordinary belief or exaggeration.

4. A segment of a journey or route.

5. A segment or length of material.

6. (Britain, slang, archaic) A walk.
   • Evelyn Underhill, quoted in 2010, Evelyn Underhill, ?Carol Poston, The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill (page 81)

     In the afternoon I went for a stretch into the country, & about 4 it cleared up pretty well, so I hurried back & we got a cart & drove to Bassano, a little town about 8 miles off, that we wanted to see.

7. (baseball) A quick pitching delivery used when runners are on base where the pitcher slides his leg instead of lifting it.
8. (baseball) A long reach in the direction of the ball with a foot remaining on the base by a first baseman in order to catch the ball sooner.
9. (informal) Term of address for a tall person.
10. (horse racing) The homestretch, the final straight section of the track leading to the finish.
11. A length of time.

    • After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever […]

    1. (Ireland) Extended daylight hours, especially said of the evening in springtime when compared to the shorter winter days.

    2. (sports) The period of the season between the trade deadline and the beginning of the playoffs.
    3. (slang) A jail or prison term.

       Synonym: stint

       1. (slang) A jail or prison term of one year's duration.
    4. A single uninterrupted sitting; a turn.
12. A stretch limousine.

Translations

Derived terms

Descendants

• Esperanto: stre?i

Further reading

• stretch at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• (a walk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• strecht

English

Etymology

From Latin attenu?re, from attenu?t-, at- = ad-, ad- (“to”) + tenu?re (“to make thin”), tenuis (“thin”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??t?n.ju?.e?t/

Verb

attenuate (third-person singular simple present attenuates, present participle attenuating, simple past and past participle attenuated)

1. (transitive) To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
   • 1874, Thomas Hardy, 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.

2. (transitive) To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
   • 1899, Stephen Crane, His New Mittens, ch. 4:

     Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.

   • 1906, E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Malefactor, ch. 1:

     Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.

3. (intransitive) To become thin or fine; to grow less.
4. (transitive) To weaken.
   • 1851, Sir Francis Palgrave, The History of Normandy and of England, ch. IV:

     We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.

5. (transitive) To rarefy.
   • 1901, H. G. Wells, 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."

6. (transitive, medicine) To reduce the virulence of a bacterium or virus.
7. (transitive, electronics) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
8. (brewing) (of a beer) To become less dense as a result of the conversion of sugar to alcohol.

Antonyms

• (electronics): amplify

Derived terms

• attenuation
• attenuable
• attenuator
• attenuative

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

attenuate (comparative more attenuate, superlative most attenuate)

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

Translations

Italian

Verb

attenuate

1. second-person plural present indicative of attenuare
2. second-person plural imperative of attenuare
3. feminine plural of attenuato

Latin

Verb

attenu?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of attenu?