attention
English
Etymology
From Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /əˈtɛn.ʃən/
Audio (GA) (file)
Noun
attention (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 222716698:
- 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 4293071:
- 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:
- Lesper Killey was at her shoulder, jerking at the wash-faded denim of her jumper to get her attention.
- 2012 March 1, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, 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.
- 1818, [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, OCLC 830979744:
- 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.
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- (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.
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Derived terms
- at attention
- attentional
- attention deficit disorder
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
- attention getter
- attention-grabbing
- attention line
- attention-seeker
- attention seeker
- attention-seeking
- attention span
- attention whore
- attract attention
- center of attention
- centre of attention
- draw attention
- pay attention
- self-attention
- stand at attention
- stand to attention
Related terms
- attentive
Translations
mental focus
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romantic interest
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state of alertness in the standing position
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- 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
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Interjection
attention
- (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
military command
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A call for people to pay special heed to what they are going to be told or shown.
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Further reading
- attention in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- attention in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Anagrams
- Antonetti, tentation
French
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionem.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /a.tɑ̃.sjɔ̃/
audio (file)
Noun
attention f (uncountable)
- attention (mental focus)
- vigilance
- Synonym: vigilance
- attention (concern for)
- attention (interest in)
- Synonyms: curiosité, intérêt
- consideration, thoughtfulness
Derived terms
- attentionnel
- faire attention
- prêter attention
Related terms
- attendre
- attentif
Interjection
attention !
- look out! watch out! careful!
Further reading
- “attention”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
- tentation