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''attrition'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260813235252-00-⌔

attrition - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

attrition (countable and uncountable, plural attritions)

  • Grinding down or wearing away by friction.
    • ✤ Antonym: accretion
    • (dentistry) The wearing of teeth due to their grinding.
  • A gradual reduction in number.
    • ✤ Antonym: accretion
    • ✤ Recent years have seen […] more and more blatant reversals of previous Supreme Court decisions in favor of the constitutional rights of minorities. These increasingly conservative decisions, and constant attrition of individuals’ rights, have directly paralleled the alarming increase of convictions in our courts.1
    • ✤ But the rise of multiracialism is not all Kumbaya choruses and “postracial” identity. The N.A.A.C.P. criticized the census change, fearing that since so few in the black community are of fully African descent, mass attrition to a mixed-race option could threaten political clout and Federal financing.2
    • (human resources) A gradual, natural reduction in membership or personnel, as through injury, incapacitation, retirement, resignation, or death.
      • ✤ Synonym: natural wastage
    • (sciences) The loss of participants during an experiment.
    • (linguistics) The loss of a first or second language or a portion of that language.
  • (theology) Imperfect contrition or remorse.

Verb

attrition (third-person singular simple present attritions, present participle attritioning, simple past and past participle attritioned)

  • (transitive) To grind or wear down through friction.
    • ✤ Synonym: attrit
    • ✤ * attritioned teeth; attritioned rock*
    • ✤ […] He took her in his arms
      And kissed her long and wetly,
      Till, attritioned by her charms,
      His will collapsed completely.      3
  • (transitive) To reduce the number of (jobs or workers) by not hiring new employees to fill positions that become vacant (often with out).4
    • ✤ […] but the heart of the health services in New York will have to attrition out some 3,000 to 5,000 jobs.5
    • ✤ […] expenses can be cut, by attritioning faculty vacancies […]6
  • (intransitive) To undergo a reduction in number.
    • ✤ The cohort of one hundred students had attritioned to sixty by the end of secondary school.

Etymology

First attested in the 15th century, from Middle English attricion, attricioun, from Middle French attricion, attrition and its etymon, Latin attrītiō (“a rubbing against”), from the verb attrītus, past participle of atterō (“to wear”), from ad- (“to, towards”) +‎ terō (“to rub”).78 By surface analysis, attrit +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA: /əˈtɹɪʃən/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /əˈtɹɪʃn̩/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɪʃən

Printed 2026-08-13.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1990 December 16, Tom Sparks, “Universal Suffrage”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 22, page 4: ↩

  2. 2008 March 23, Peggy Orenstein, “Mixed Messenger”, in The New York Times ‎, archived from the original on 6 November 2020: ↩

  3. 1989, Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novel ‎, New York: Arcade, Book 9, p. 189: ↩

  4. Clarence Barnhart et al., The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English, Bronxville, NY: Barnhart Books. ↩

  5. 1973, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education, Hearings, page 186: ↩

  6. 1989, Herbert S. White, “The Future of Library and Information Science Education”, in Librarians and the Awakening from Innocence, ‎, Boston: G.K. Hall, page 86: ↩

  7. “attriciǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  8. “attrition, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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Secondary

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