attend
verb
Simple meaning
Be present at.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhtehndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈtɛnd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Be present at (meetings, church services, university), etc.
transitive
To care for (someone requiring attention); specifically, of a doctor, nurse, etc.: to provide professional care to (someone).
transitive
To be present at (an event or place) in order to take part in some action or proceedings; also, to regularly go to (an event or place).
intransitive
To be ready to wait upon someone or their instructions as an attendant, servant, etc.; also (followed by on or upon), to accompany someone in order to assist or wait upon them.
Work for or be a servant to
transitive
To take action with respect to (someone, or something such as a concern, problem, or task); to deal with, to handle.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To be ready to wait upon someone or their instructions as an attendant, servant, etc.; also (followed by on or upon), to accompany someone in order to assist or wait upon them.
Used this way, attend is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use attend
- “The children in the audience attended the recital quietly.”verb
- “She attends class regularly.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Playing or singing with instrumental or vocal accompaniment.
The process whereby a person concentrates on some features of the environment to the (relative) exclusion of others.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The act of being present (at a meeting or event etc.).
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Someone who waits on or tends to or attends to the needs of another.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.