English Explanatory Dictionary

attention

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Mental focus.
  2. An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
  3. A state of alertness in the standing position.
  4. A kind of prioritisation technique in neural networks that assigns soft weights between tokens from two (or more) input sequences in order to compute the required output.
intj
  1. Used as a command to bring soldiers to the attention position.
  2. 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.

Pronunciation

/əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-attention.wav en-us-attention.ogg

Word forms

attention attentions

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *ten- Proto-Indo-European *tend-der. Proto-Italic *tendō Latin tendō Latin attendō Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin attentiōbor. Middle English attencioun English attention From Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend. Equivalent to attend + -tion.

Synonyms

advertence advertency attention consideration heed heedfulness mark mind note notice observance observation reflection regard

Antonyms

apathy inattention neglect oversight

Related words

attentive heads up! notable pay attention ponder

Derived words

at attention attentional attention deficit disorder attention deficit hyperactivity disorder attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder attention economy 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 cross-attention disattention draw attention hyperattention meta-attention nonattention overattention pay attention preattention self-attention snap to attention stand at attention stand to attention thank you for your attention to this matter unattention underattention
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