Attachment

How to spell attachment

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce attachment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attachment mean?

1. nounA feeling of affection or loyalty that binds one person to another or to a thing.
2. nounA file sent along with an email message.
3. nounA part or accessory that clips onto a larger device to extend its function.

Attachment in a sentence

• She felt a deep attachment to the house where she grew up.

• Please open the attachment to review the signed contract.

• The narrow attachment on the vacuum reaches into tight corners.

• His attachment to the old car kept him from selling it.

• The email bounced because the attachment exceeded the size limit.

• This drill comes with a sanding attachment for finishing wood.

Where does attachment come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the Old French verb 'atachier', meaning to fasten or fix something in place, which itself was built on 'tache', a fastening or a nail. English took up the related verb 'attach' in the late 1300s, originally in the legal sense of seizing a person or property by authority, and the noun 'attachment' followed to name both that legal seizure and, more generally, the act of fixing one thing to another. Over time the sense softened into the warm idea of an emotional bond, a person becoming fond of or devoted to someone. In the twentieth century the word picked up two further everyday meanings: a fitting that clips onto a machine, and, in the computer age, a file fastened to an email message. The spelling keeps the doubled 't' from the 'at-' prefix meeting the root and the soft 'ch', which is the part writers most often second-guess.

How the word is built

• at- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• tach (from Old French tache: fasten, nail)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)