Attach

How to spell attach

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce attach

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attach mean?

1. verbTo fasten, join, or connect one thing to another.

Attach in a sentence

• Please attach the receipt to your expense claim.

• You can attach the bracket to the wall with two screws.

Where does attach come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from Old French atachier (later attachier), meaning 'to fasten, fix, or bind to something', built from the prefix a- (representing Latin ad, 'to' or 'towards') and the root tache, a 'nail', 'peg', or 'fastening'. That same tache root, of Germanic origin, also underlies the related word 'attack', which shares the idea of joining or engaging with something forcefully. English borrowed atachier in the 1300s, originally in a legal sense meaning 'to seize property or arrest a person by warrant', a meaning still alive in legal phrases like 'attach the assets'. Over time the everyday sense of physically fastening one thing to another became dominant, and the modern world added a fresh layer: attaching a file to an email. The single t after the prefix and the soft -ach ending (sounding like 'atch') are the spots writers most often second-guess.

How the word is built

• at- (variant of ad-: to, towards)
• -tach (from Old French tache: nail, fastening)