The Collaborative International Dictionary
Attribute \At*trib"ute\ ([a^]t"tr[i^]*b[=u]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Attributed; p. pr. & vb. n. Attributing.] [L. attributus, p. p. of attribuere; ad + tribuere to bestow. See Tribute.] To ascribe; to consider (something) as due or appropriate (to); to refer, as an effect to a cause; to impute; to assign; to consider as belonging (to).
We attribute nothing to God that hath any repugnancy or
contradiction in it.
--Abp.
Tillotson.
The merit of service is seldom attributed to the true
and exact performer.
--Shak.
Syn: See Ascribe.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of attribute English)
Usage examples of "attributing".
Weidenreich, director of the Cenozoic Research Laboratory at Beijing Union Medical College, also stated that there was no justification for attributing the femur and the skullcap to the same individual.
But there was nevertheless a striking coincidence in their ideas, readily explained by attributing it to a foreign influence.
He follows the action of the male and female principles through all the portions and divisions of nature, attributing to the former the origin of stability and identity, to the latter, that of diversity and mobility.
In any case, as Hilary Putnam argues, on purely pragmatic grounds more understanding is gleaned by taking into account mental causation than by dogmatically attributing all events solely to physical causation.
Those attributing the reduced appearance to the lesser angle occupied allow by their very theory that the unoccupied portion of the eye still sees something beyond or something quite apart from the object of vision, if only air-space.
He expressed much surprise, and said that he had not believed the report attributing this opinion to me.
To avoid attributing a breach of solemn pledges, it must be supposed that Virginia was considered as out of the Union, and a public enemy, in whose borders it was proper to destroy whatever might be useful to her of the common property of the States lately united.
I know no justification, at any distance of time, for calumniating an historical character: surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortunate: and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them that which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death renders, of all others, the most improbable.
We now proceed to quote and unfold five distinct passages, not yet brought forward, from the epistle, each of which proves that we are not mistaken in attributing to the writer 8 Antiq.
The Gnostics agreed in attributing evil to matter, and made the means of redemption to consist in fastings and scourgings of the flesh, with denial of all its cravings, and in lofty spiritual contemplations.
This would amply account for the removal of Richard Lee to Virginia, and for the ambition he seems to have been inspired with, to build and improve, without attributing to him any apprehension of probable punishment for his political course.
Her own singular experiences in this enchanted region were certainly not suggested by anything she had heard, and may be considered psychologically curious by those who would not think of attributing any mystical meaning to them.
All of them concurred in attributing the works of our Lord to the influence of magic, but they were divided as to the species of enchantment from which the power proceeded.
The baron might possibly have perceived it, but, attributing it to a caprice, feigned ignorance.
Although most scientists would never dream of it, one could consider attributing the Koobi Fora femurs to a hominid very much like modern Homo sapiens, living in Africa about 2 million years ago.