# attention

> English word · Noun · IPA /əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/ · frequency rank #800

## Definitions
1. Mental focus.
2. An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
3. A state of alertness in the standing position.
4. A kind of prioritisation technique in neural networks that assigns soft weights between tokens from two (or more) input sequences in order to compute the required output.

## Etymology
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd
Proto-Italic *ad
Proto-Italic *ad-
Latin ad-
Proto-Indo-European *ten-
Proto-Indo-European *tend-der.
Proto-Italic *tendō
Latin tendō
Latin attendō
Proto-Indo-European *-tisder.
Proto-Italic *-tjō
Latin -tiō
Latin attentiōbor.
Middle English attencioun
English attention
From Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend. Equivalent to attend + -tion.

## Easily confused with
- **attentive** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/attention-vs-attentive)
- **attrition** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/attention-vs-attrition)
- **attentions** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/attention-vs-attentions)
- **attenuation** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/attention-vs-attenuation)

## Common misspellings (12)
`atention`, `atetntion`, `atteniton`, `attenntion`, `attension`, `attentino`, `attentionn`, `attentoin`, `attenttion`, `attetnion`, `attnetion`, `tatention`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/attention