attended

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of attend.

   He attended the climate conference as a junior delegate.

   Thousands attended the memorial held downtown.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty. It is the simple past (she attended the hearing), and it is also the participle that follows have in perfect tenses and be in the passive. The passive reads naturally across the verb's range: a patient attended by a nurse, a princess attended by her ladies-in-waiting, a meeting well attended. From there it shades into the adjective of presence.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having one or more people present, with someone there in attendance.

   The control room must remain attended whenever the reactor is active.

   Only attended vehicles are allowed in the drop-off zone.

   Similarstaffed, manned, supervised, occupied

   Oppositeunattended, unmanned, unstaffed

   Note

   A word of systems and procedures, used where the alternative is a machine or an empty room. An attended station had an operator, unlike a coin-box telephone. An attended sleep study keeps a technician in the lab. In an attended call transfer, the system stays on the line until the other party picks up. The word sits before its noun and marks the human version of the setup.

3. 3
   adjective

   Receiving people's notice or attention rather than being ignored.

   The long-ignored grievance was at last fully attended.

   Each guest's comfort was closely attended throughout the evening.

   Similaraddressed

   Oppositeneglected, overlooked

   Note

   In the psychology and neuroscience of attention, it is a working term. An attended stimulus, location or spot is the one a subject's attention is directed at, and it is usually set against the unattended one. It sits before its noun. Keep it apart from the sense of human presence: an attended station has someone in it, while an attended stimulus has someone's mind on it.

   Responses to the attended stimulus were larger than responses to the unattended one.

   Targets appearing at the attended location were detected more quickly.

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