attach

Borrowed from Old French atachier, variant of estachier (“bind”), derived from estache (“stick”), from Frankish *stakka (“stick”). Doublet of attack.

• IPA^(key): /əˈtætʃ/
• Rhymes: -ætʃ
• Hyphenation: at‧tach

attach (third-person singular simple present attaches, present participle attaching, simple past and past participle attached)

1. (transitive) To fasten, to join to (literally and figuratively).

   Synonyms: connect, annex, affix, unite; see also Thesaurus:join

   Antonyms: detach, unfasten, disengage, separate; see also Thesaurus:disconnect

   An officer is attached to a certain regiment, company, or ship.

   • Paley

     The shoulder blade is […] attached only to the muscles.

   • 1856, page 60 of "The History of England: From the Accession of James the Second, Volumes 3-4" by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay

     A huge stone, to which the cable on the left bank was attached, was removed years later

   • 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist:

     Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.

   You need to attach the carabiner to your harness.

2. (intransitive) To adhere; to be attached.

   Synonyms: cling, stick; see also Thesaurus:adhere

   • Brougham

     The great interest which attaches to the mere knowledge of these facts cannot be doubted.

3. To come into legal operation in connection with anything; to vest.

   Dower will attach.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cooley to this entry?)

4. To win the heart of; to connect by ties of love or self-interest; to attract; to fasten or bind by moral influence; with to.

   attached to a friend; attaching others to us by wealth or flattery

   • Jane Austen

     incapable of attaching a sensible man

   • Cowper

     God […] by various ties attaches man to man.

5. To connect, in a figurative sense; to ascribe or attribute; to affix; with to.

   to attach great importance to a particular circumstance

   • Bayard Taylor

     To this treasure a curse is attached.

6. (obsolete) To take, seize, or lay hold of.
   • c. 1595, Shakespeare, William, Love's Labour's Lost, act 4, scene 3, lines 351–352:

     Then homeward every man attach the hand / Of his fair mistress.

7. (obsolete, law) To arrest, seize.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xii:

     Eftsoones the Gard, which on his state did wait, / Attacht that faitor false, and bound him strait […]

   • 1610, The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, act 3 scene 2

     Old lord, I cannot blame thee, / Who am myself attach'd with weariness / To th' dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest.

   • Miss Yonge

     The earl marshal attached Gloucester for high treason.

• attachable
• attachment
• attacher
• get attached

• attachment

• chatta