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attrition

Definition

  • noun: a reduction in the number of employees or participants that occurs when people leave because they resign, retire, etc., and are not replaced
  • noun: sorrow for one's sins that arises from a motive other than that of the love of God
  • used especially in the phrase 'war of attrition'
  • synonyms: abatement, ablation, abrasion

Examples

  • The staff has been thinned through 'attrition'. [=the staff has become smaller because people have left]

  • They can only gain victory by fighting a long 'war of attrition'.

  • a growing 'attrition rate' = a growing 'rate of attrition'

Movie quotes

  • (..) For now let's consider... the books as the killer's inspiration. The sermons were about atonement for sin. These murders are like forced attrition. Forced what? Attrition's when you regret your sins, but not because... - you love God. - Because there's a gun in your face. (..)
    1995 Se7en