Attencioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Close mental concentration or heed directed toward a particular thing, as recorded in Middle English texts
2. The act of directing one's mind or careful notice toward something, an archaic spelling of attention
3. Focused awareness or regard given to an object, matter, or person, as the word was written in older English

Etymology: Middle English "attencioun" is the ancestor of modern "attention," and it arrived in English from Old French "attention," which came from Latin "attentio," a noun built from "attendere," meaning "to stretch toward" or "to give heed." The Latin verb combined "ad-" ("to") with "tendere" ("to stretch"), so the core image is of the mind literally reaching out toward something. That physical picture is what makes the word interesting. Attention began as a matter of bodily orientation, of stretching yourself toward an object, and only gradually came to mean the mental effort of focusing on it. English speakers were using the word in its modern sense of concentrated mental focus by the time it was written in Middle English, and the sense of paying heed or courtesy, as in "attention, please," developed alongside it. The same root gives us "attend," "attentive," and "tend" in its older sense of stretching toward, which is why "tendency" and "intend" share the same ancestry. The mind's reaching out and the tendons' stretching are, etymologically, the same idea.

Synonyms: heed, regard, notice, care, mindfulness

Antonyms: inattention, neglect, disregard, distraction