# attend

Pronunciation: say "uh-TEND" /əˈtɛnd/

## Verb

1. To be present at an event or place, such as a meeting, class, or church service, or to go there regularly.
   - Simple: To go to an event or place and be there, or to go there regularly, like school or church.
   - _Delegates from forty countries will attend the climate summit later this week._
   - _He has attended the same church for thirty years._
2. To keep one's mind on someone or something and pay attention to it, often to a person, a matter, or a set of instructions, with the eyes and thoughts as much as the ears.
   - Simple: To listen or pay attention to something carefully.
   - _Investors should attend closely to the warning signs in the report._
   - _She attended carefully to every word of the testimony._
3. To deal with a person, problem, or task that needs action, usually followed by to; to handle or see to it.
   - Simple: To deal with something or someone that needs your help or action.
   - _Engineers were sent to attend to the damaged section of track immediately._
   - _She attended to every detail of the wedding herself._
4. To look after someone or something and see to their needs, especially, of a doctor or nurse, to give medical care.
   - Simple: To take care of someone, for example as a doctor or nurse does for a sick person.
   - _Specialists attend the injured climbers at the field hospital._
   - _The midwife attended hundreds of mothers during her career._
5. To serve someone or wait on their orders as a servant or attendant, or to go with them in order to help, as a courtier does for royalty.
   - Simple: To serve someone, wait for their orders, or go with them to help.
   - _Courtiers attend the king wherever he goes, ready for his orders._
   - _Ladies-in-waiting attended the princess throughout the long ceremony._
6. Of something, especially something abstract, to come along with or follow as a result of something else.
   - Simple: To come together with something, or to happen because of it.
   - _Considerable dangers attend the journey through the mountain pass._
   - _Uncertainty attended every decision the new government made._

## Verb

7. To give consideration to someone or something; to heed or regard. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To pay attention to someone or something and take notice.
8. To listen carefully to someone or something. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To listen closely.
9. To wait for someone or something, such as a decision or an expected event. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To wait for someone or something to come or happen.
10. Of a thing, to lie in wait for someone or be in store for them. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Of a thing, to be waiting for someone in the future.
11. To remain in a place and wait; to abide. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To stay in one place and wait there.
12. To expect or look forward, used with 'for'. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To expect something or to look forward, used with 'for'.
13. To intend or mean something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To plan something or mean to do it.

## Origin

From Middle English attenden, borrowed via Old French atendre ("to await, expect, intend") from Latin attendere "to pay attention to, direct toward," built from the prefix ad- ("to, towards") plus tendō ("to stretch, direct one's course"). The verb tend, as in tending the sick, began as a shortened form of it.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/attend (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).