All 7 Uses of
attribute
in
Rappaccini's Daughter
- She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone.†
(definition 1)
- Neither the sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that Giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter.
(definition 2)attributed = credited (pointed to as the cause of something)
- Whether or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his system.†
(definition 2)
- ...an observer might easily have overlooked the merely physical attributes and have seen only this wonderful energy.
(definition 1) *attributes = characteristics
- Ever and anon there gleamed across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he should be walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful attributes,--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike.†
(definition 2)
- A fragrance was diffused from it which Giovanni recognized as identical with that which he had attributed to Beatrice's breath,
(definition 2) *attributed = credited (pointed to as the cause of something)
- On such better evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, though rather by the necessary force of her high attributes than by any deep and generous faith on his part.†
(definition 2)
Definitions:
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(1) (attribute as in: It is an attribute of...) a characteristic (of something or someone)
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(2) (attribute as in: I attribute it to...) 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