Etymologically
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attend

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /əˈtend/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English attenden, atenden,[2][3] borrowed from Old French atendre (“to expect, wait for, pay attention”) (12th century, modern attendre “to wait for”),[4][2][5] and directly from Latin attendere (“to give heed to”),[4][2] literally “to stretch toward”, especially in attendere animum “to stretch the mind toward”,[2][4] from ad “to” and tendere “to stretch”,[4][2][6] from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).[4] It is related to tend, attention and attentive.[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To be subject to, a sense now obsolete: about 1300 in Etymonline.[4] To direct one's mind, pay attention: before 1300 in the OED,[7] before 1325 in Barnhart, in Cursor Mundi,[2] the early 14th century in Etymonline.[4]

Semantic evolution

To take care of or wait upon is from the mid-14th century,[4][5] to pay attention from the early 15th century,[4] and to accompany and serve someone, and to be present, from the mid-15th century.[4] To be present at a meeting or event, now a main sense, is from the 17th century,[5] and to follow as a consequence from the 1610s.[4] The sense “to wait for, expect”, as in French, was used in English but is obsolete.[5] Attendance is from about 1380, in Chaucer's Boethius,[2] and attendant from before 1422.[2]

Timeline

  • a. 1300 – to pay attention.[7]
  • mid-14th century – to take care of.[4]
  • c. 1380 – attendance.[2]
  • mid-15th century – to accompany; to be present.[4]
  • 1610s – to follow as a result.[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To be present at: attend a meeting.
  2. To go regularly to a school or church.
  3. To take care of or look after: doctors attending the wounded.
  4. To accompany as a servant or companion.
  5. To accompany as a result: the risks that attend surgery.
  6. attend to: to apply oneself to or deal with; to pay attention to.

Word family

  • attender
  • attendingly
  • attendee
  • attending
  • tend

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press