Sample sentences for ATTRIBUTE

2 meanings

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1 —as in:
It is an attribute of...

Definition

a characteristic (of something or someone)

The spreadsheet has a column to describe the breed of dog and then ten additional columns to indicate attributes of the breeds. For example the second column has the average full-grown weight.

attributes = characteristics

Other Uses (with this meaning)

She described his physical attributes.

attributes = characteristics

A key attribute of amphibians is that they use gills prior to metamorphosing to use lungs.

attribute = characteristic (of something or someone)

Flexibility of mind, a disposition easily biased by others, is an attribute which you know I am not very desirous of obtaining
Jane Austen -- Lady Susan

attribute = characteristic (of something or someone)

"The fourth essential attribute," the Chief Elder said, "is wisdom."
Lois Lowry -- The Giver

attribute = characteristic

those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
Abraham Lincoln -- Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

attributes = characteristics

Patience had never been one of her strongest attributes.
Nicholas Sparks -- The Notebook

attributes = characteristics

One of Sukeena's many wonderful attributes is her ability to remain calm and consistent.
Stephen King -- Rose Red

attributes = characteristics (of something or someone)

For all that, it has never been my position that good accent and command of language are not attractive attributes, and I always considered it my duty to develop them as best I could.
Kazuo Ishiguro -- The Remains of the Day

attributes = characteristics (of something or someone)

I knew that all the attributes he was teased for, at age five, were going to work in his favor by the time he was thirty-five, but I couldn't get him there overnight.
Jodi Picoult -- Nineteen Minutes

attributes = traits (characteristics)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

2 —as in:
I attribute it to...

Definition

to credit (a source for something)

in two typical senses:

"I attribute it to her work." — to say who or what made something happen
"Remember to attribute any quotations in your paper." — indicate the source of a quotation or idea

She attributed this quotation to Shakespeare.

attributed = credited (pointed to as the source of)

Other Uses (with this meaning)

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Hanlon's Razor

attribute = credit (regard as the source)

She attributes her success to hard work.

attributes = gives credit for

As usual, he didn't ask about my day, preferring to work in silence. Yesterday I'd attributed it to the fact that we were strangers; today I understood that there was a possibility we always would be.
Nicholas Sparks -- Dear John

attributed = credited (pointed to as the cause of)

Was he really a coward, as his son had so brutally pointed out? Certainly, in World War I, he considered himself one. He attributed his survival to it.
Markus Zusak -- The Book Thief

attributed = credited (pointed to as the cause of)

Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

attributed = credited (pointed to as the cause of something)

Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east; and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined to attribute to the dragon)...
J.R.R. Tolkien -- The Hobbit

attribute = credit (point to as the cause of)

To find a documented poisoning attributable to wild sweet pea, I had to go all the way back to the nineteenth-century annals of Arctic exploration.
Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild

attributable = with cause able to be traced

(Editor's note: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.)

His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he's made, and his life will improve only through better decisions.
J.D. Vance -- Hillbilly Elegy

attributable = traceable (caused by)

(Editor's note: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.)

Her mother, inclined at first to attribute her complaints to moping, took a second look at her flushed cheeks and put her to bed.
Elizabeth George Speare -- The Witch of Blackbird Pond

attribute = credit (point to as the cause of)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

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