Library / English Dictionary

ATTENDING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of being present (at a meeting or event etc.)

Synonyms:

attendance; attending

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("attending" is a kind of...):

group action (action taken by a group of people)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "attending"):

appearance; appearing; coming into court (formal attendance (in court or at a hearing) of a party in an action)

presence (the act of being present)

turnout (attendance for a particular event or purpose (as to vote in an election))

Sense 2

Meaning:

The process whereby a person concentrates on some features of the environment to the (relative) exclusion of others

Synonyms:

attending; attention

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("attending" is a kind of...):

basic cognitive process (cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledge)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "attending"):

attentiveness; heed; paying attention; regard (paying particular notice (as to children or helpless people))

clock-watching (paying excessive attention to the clock (in anticipation of stopping work))

ear (attention to what is said)

eye (attention to what is seen)

notice; observance; observation (the act of noticing or paying attention)

notice (polite or favorable attention)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

-ing form of the verb attend

Credits

 Context examples: 

"What!—while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your heart? And I have reproached you for being happy!"

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

In addition to documenting a driver’s dialing, texting, browsing or reaching for a phone, researchers assessed numerous secondary tasks, including dancing to music, attending to personal hygiene, and eating or drinking.

(Reaching for objects while driving may raise teen crash risk nearly sevenfold, National Institutes of Health)

The work of attending to someone or something.

(Care, NCI Thesaurus)

During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life, attending to his own simple wants and paying little apparent heed to the affairs of his neighbours.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Research has also shown that increased awareness of the baby during pregnancy is associated with healthy behaviours during pregnancy, such as giving up smoking or attending antenatal appointments.

(Mother’s attitude towards baby during pregnancy may have implications for child’s development, University of Cambridge)

I had also sometimes the honour of attending my master in his visits to others.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

And their function is to catch all the young fellows attending the university, to drive out of their minds any glimmering originality that may chance to be there, and to put upon them the stamp of the established.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That was all; and on the land I would have been lying on the broad of my back, with a surgeon attending on me, and with strict injunctions to do nothing but rest.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Without attending to this, Henry Crawford continued his supplication.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)