Definition of "attenuate"

A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.

1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter 40, in Far From the Madding Crowd

Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.

1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 4, in His New Mittens

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

1906, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 1, in The Malefactor

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

1851, Sir Francis Palgrave, chapter IV, in The History of Normandy and of England

"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."

1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 23, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901

A beer which does not attenuate to the expected level in fermentation will have more residual sugar and thus be sweeter and heavier-bodied.

2009 July–August, John Palmer, “Attenuation: Advanced Brewing”, in Brew Your Own‎, archived from the original on 6 October 2013