Attending

How to spell attending

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce attending

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attending mean?

1. verbPresent participle of attend: going to and being present at an event, meeting, or place.
2. adjectiveDescribing the senior physician with overall responsibility for a patient's care, especially in a hospital.

Attending in a sentence

• verb

  She is attending a training course in the city this week.

• adjective

  The attending physician signed off on the discharge paperwork.

• verb

  Thank you for attending the budget meeting on such short notice.

• adjective

  Residents present each case to the attending doctor every morning.

Where does attending come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'attend', which English took from the Old French 'atendre' in the 1200s, itself descended from the Latin 'attendere'. That Latin verb was built from 'ad', meaning 'to' or 'toward', and 'tendere', meaning 'to stretch', so its literal sense was 'to stretch toward' something. The idea of stretching the mind toward a matter gave us 'to pay attention', while stretching oneself physically toward a place gave us 'to be present at' and 'to wait upon or serve'. The same 'tendere' root quietly powers a large family of English words, including 'tension', 'extend', and 'intend', all sharing the notion of stretching. The single 't' after the prefix and the '-tend-' core are the spelling points worth fixing in memory, since the word is regular once those parts are seen.

How the word is built

• at- (from Latin ad-: to, toward)
• tend (from tendere: to stretch)
• -ing (present participle suffix)