attention
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend.
Pronunciation
edit- IPA(key): /əˈtɛn.ʃən/
Audio (General American): (file)
Noun
editattention (countable and uncountable, plural attentions)
- (uncountable) Mental focus.
- Synonyms: heed, notice; see also Thesaurus:attention
- Please direct your attention to the following words.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.” He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.
- 1959, Mari Sandoz, “Bone Joe and the Smokin' Woman”, in Hostiles and Friendlies: Selected Short Writings[1]:
- Lesper Killey was at her shoulder, jerking at the wash-faded denim of her jumper to get her attention.
- 2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist[2], volume 100, number 2, page 87:
- But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.
- (countable) An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
- 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 3, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:
- She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper.
- 1910, Stephen Leacock, “How to Avoid Getting Married,”, in Literary Lapses:
- For some time past I have been the recipient of very marked attentions from a young lady.
- (uncountable, military) A state of alertness in the standing position.
- The company will now come to attention.
- (uncountable, machine learning) A technique in neural networks that mimics cognitive attention, enhancing the important parts of the input data while giving less priority to the rest.
- 2021, Savas Yildirim, Meysam Asgari-Chenaghlu, Mastering Transformers […] , Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 26:
- The attention mechanism is an important part of these models and plays a very crucial role. Before Transformer models, the attention mechanism was proposed as a helper for improving conventional DL models such as RNNs.
Derived terms
edit- at attention
- attentional
- attention deficit disorder
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
- attention getter
- attention-grabbing
- attentionless
- attention line
- attention seeker, attention-seeker, attention-seeking
- attention span
- attention whore
- attract attention
- care and attention
- center of attention, centre of attention
- disattention
- draw attention
- hyperattention
- meta-attention
- nonattention
- overattention
- pay attention
- preattention
- self-attention
- stand at attention
- stand to attention
- unattention
- underattention
Related terms
editCollocations
editadjectives with "attention"
- slight attention
- strict attention
- careful attention
- extra attention
- little attention
- excessive attention
- special attention
- immediate attention
- close attention
- explicit attention
- full attention
- partial attention
- medical attention
- urgent attention
- public attention
- sustained attention
- utmost attention
- explicit attention
verbs with "attention"
- need attention
- pay attention
- show attention
- appreciate someone's attention
- require attention
- raise attention
Translations
editmental focus
|
romantic interest
|
state of alertness in the standing position
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
Interjection
editattention
- (military) Used as a command to bring soldiers to the attention position.
- A call for people to be quiet/stop doing what they are presently doing and pay heed to what they are to be told or shown.
Translations
editmilitary command
|
call for people to pay special heed
|
Further reading
edit- “attention”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “attention”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Anagrams
editFrench
editEtymology
editBorrowed from Latin attentiōnem.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editattention f (uncountable)
- attention (mental focus)
- vigilance
- Synonym: vigilance
- attention (concern for)
- attention (interest in)
- consideration, thoughtfulness
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editInterjection
editattention !
Further reading
edit- “attention”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
editCategories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Military
- en:Artificial intelligence
- English interjections
- French terms borrowed from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 3-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French uncountable nouns
- French feminine nouns
- French interjections