Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To weaken or reduce in number by stress or military action.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
wear down throughattrition , especiallymechanical attrition - verb To engage in
attrition ; toquit ordrop out - verb To be reduced in quantity through
attrition - verb military To lose, or to kill
troops byattrition due to sustainedfirepower
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word attrit.
Examples
-
Therefore, the verb 'attrit' can be modified in the following ways:
Above the Law 2009
-
The classic example is the use of SAMs by the Egyptians and Syrians in the 1973 Yom Kippur war to attrit Israeli airpower and interfere with its ability to support the ground defensive fighting by the Israeli Army.
-
Take Malaya, take Borneo and attrit the US forces on the Philippines.
-
If you begin to take casualties among American troops in Iraq and Israeli and Saudi civilians, to what level to you have to escalate in order to attempt to attrit that capability?
No More War, No More Iraq, No More White Lies, The President Is Black | ATTACKERMAN 2009
-
Roger, this is pretty clear and I rebutted it: "...you need to look at the total numbers of middies entering his class and how they attrit out during the four years."
Jay Leno to John McCain: "For $1 million, how many houses do you have?" Ann Althouse 2008
-
Alpha--to understand where and why McCain graduated in his class, you need to look at the total numbers of middies entering his class and how they attrit out during the four years.
Jay Leno to John McCain: "For $1 million, how many houses do you have?" Ann Althouse 2008
-
We can start hiring nonsexistly, which over a long period of time as the old boys attrit will gradually even out the gender distribution, with the actual numbers looking sexist the whole way.
If you don't see it, you're part of the problem. Angry Professor 2008
-
No charge will be as important as the charge that you conspired to devolve and dissolve our "outdated" ground forces; that you two conspired with Rummy and the top echelons of civilian and military of DOD did knowingly deploy ground forces and by following illegal orders, attrit those forces with all due speed in an illegal war.
Dead Demos -- The Emperor's Media Hos -- No More G.I. Joes? 2007
-
One is to continue to attack the organization with solid police work so that we attrit it or reduce it over time, but the other thing, the most important thing is to not help him.
-
I mean -- if we actually enforce the law, especially against employers who are hiring people that are coming here illegally, you begin to attrit.
qroqqa commented on the word attrit
Wear the Cong down, and he'll quit... Attrit him.
—Atlantic Monthly, 1969
'Attrit' (back-formation from 'attrition') is a recent variant, apparently US military, of the older verb 'attrite' "rub; wear down", which is known from 1726 (1917 in military context).
August 4, 2008
bilby commented on the word attrit
Saw this in the wild recently, for the first time in my life. Was in relation to Russia-Ukraine war.
June 6, 2022