Unattended

How to spell unattended

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unattended

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unattended mean?

1. adjectiveLeft without anyone present to watch over, supervise, or take care of it.

Unattended in a sentence

• Security removed an unattended bag from the departure lounge.

• The children must not be left unattended near the pool.

Where does unattended come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the verb 'attend', which English took through Old French from the Latin attendere, meaning literally 'to stretch toward'. That Latin verb joined ad ('to' or 'toward') with tendere ('to stretch'), and the original idea was of stretching your mind toward something, in other words paying attention to it. From there 'attend' came to mean both 'to be present at' and 'to take care of', and the same tendere root still shows up in relatives such as 'tense', 'extend', and 'tendon'. The negative prefix un-, a very old native English element meaning 'not', was then added together with the adjective ending -ed to describe something or someone left without care or supervision. The spelling trap lives entirely in the joins: the single n where un- meets attend, and the doubled t inside attend itself.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• attend (root, from Latin attendere: to give heed to)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)