Attendant

How to spell attendant

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce attendant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attendant mean?

1. nounA person whose job is to serve, assist, or look after others in a particular place.
2. adjectiveOccurring or accompanying as a result or consequence of something.

Attendant in a sentence

• noun

  The parking attendant waved the delivery van through the gate.

• adjective

  The merger brought higher profits and the attendant risks of overexpansion.

• noun

  A flight attendant demonstrated how to fasten the seatbelt.

• adjective

  Buying a house carries an attendant pile of paperwork and fees.

Where does attendant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb attendere, which literally meant 'to stretch toward', formed from ad 'to' and tendere 'to stretch' or 'to direct'. The mental image is of stretching one's attention or care toward something, and from that came the sense of paying heed and waiting upon a person. English took the word through Old French atendant in the 1300s, where it described someone who serves or waits in attendance. The same tendere root spreads through a whole family of English words, including 'tend', 'tension', 'extend', and 'attention', which is a useful reminder that the spelling hangs on the -tend- core. The trap for writers is the ending: it is -ant, not -ent, even though many similar words such as 'superintendent' take -ent, so the unstressed final vowel is easy to confuse.

How the word is built

• at- (from ad-: to, toward)
• tend (from tendere: to stretch, to direct one's attention)
• -ant (noun/adjective suffix denoting one who does)