What's the difference between attack and detract?

Attack


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fall upon with force; to assail, as with force and arms; to assault.
  • (v. t.) To assail with unfriendly speech or writing; to begin a controversy with; to attempt to overthrow or bring into disrepute, by criticism or satire; to censure; as, to attack a man, or his opinions, in a pamphlet.
  • (v. t.) To set to work upon, as upon a task or problem, or some object of labor or investigation.
  • (v. t.) To begin to affect; to begin to act upon, injuriously or destructively; to begin to decompose or waste.
  • (v. i.) To make an onset or attack.
  • (n.) The act of attacking, or falling on with force or violence; an onset; an assault; -- opposed to defense.
  • (n.) An assault upon one's feelings or reputation with unfriendly or bitter words.
  • (n.) A setting to work upon some task, etc.
  • (n.) An access of disease; a fit of sickness.
  • (n.) The beginning of corrosive, decomposing, or destructive action, by a chemical agent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In attacking the motion to freeze the licence fee during today's Parliamentary debate the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, criticised the Tory leader.
  • (2) The major treatable risk factors in thromboembolic stroke are hypertension and transient ischemic attacks (TIA).
  • (3) In January, Paris taxi drivers attacked an Uber car transporting two passengers from Charles de Gaulle airport.
  • (4) The manufacturers, British Aerospace describe it as a "single-seat, radar equipped, lightweight, multi-role combat aircraft, providing comprehensive air defence and ground attack capability".
  • (5) She had three attacks of severe migrainous headache accompanied with nausea and vomiting within three weeks.
  • (6) 2.39pm BST The European Union called for a "thorough and immediate" investigation of the alleged chemical attack.
  • (7) Lactate-induced anxiety and symptom attacks without panic were seen more often in the groups with panic attacks, but a full-blown panic attack was provoked in only four subjects, all belonging to the groups with a history of panic attacks.
  • (8) A 45-year-old mother of four, named as Hediye Sen, was killed during clashes in Cizre, while a 70-year-old died of a heart attack during fighting in Silopi, according to hospital sources.
  • (9) A full-scale war is unlikely but there is clear concern in Seoul about the more realistic threat of a small-scale attack on the South Korean military or a group of islands near the countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea.
  • (10) This attack can take place during organogenesis, during early differentiation of neural anlagen after neural tube closure or during biochemical differentiation of the brain.
  • (11) For the second propositus, a woman presenting with abdominal and psychiatric manifestations, the age of onset was 38 years; the acute attack had no recognizable cause; she had mild skin lesions and initially was incorrectly diagnosed as intermittent acute porphyria; the diagnosis of variegate porphyria was only established at the age of 50 years.
  • (12) My thoughts are with all those who have lost loved ones or been injured in this barbaric attack.
  • (13) The charges against Harrison were filed just after two white men were accused of fatally shooting three black people in Tulsa in what prosecutors said were racially motivated attacks.
  • (14) Treatment with salbutamol inhalation had a beneficial effect on the duration of their adynamic attacks.
  • (15) Diabetic retinopathy (an index of microangiopathy) and absence of peripheral pulses, amputation, or history of myocardial infarction, stroke, or transient ischemic attacks (as evidence of macroangiopathy) caused surprisingly little increase in relative risk for cardiovascular death.
  • (16) The remain side have already targeted Johnson’s credibility in attacks that the Brexiters believe were orchestrated by Downing Street.
  • (17) I first saw them live at the location of the terror attack, Manchester Arena – then the MEN – aged 15, a teen at a gig with my friends, as many of the Grande’s fans were.
  • (18) Maguire's colleagues rushed to her side, some administering first aid while others held her attacker, witnesses said.
  • (19) But late last month, Amisom pushed them out of Afgoye, a strategic stronghold 30km from Mogadishu, where Amisom officials say the militants used to manufacture explosives used in attacks on the capital.
  • (20) Repeated transient ischemic attacks in the same territory with minimal lesions on arteriography and non-homogeneous plaque on duplex scan; 2.

Detract


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To take away; to withdraw.
  • (v. t.) To take credit or reputation from; to defame.
  • (v. i.) To take away a part or something, especially from one's credit; to lessen reputation; to derogate; to defame; -- often with from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Unethical conduct in research can be divided into five categories: 1) falsification of data, in which the researcher manipulates results, provides data without experimentation, or biases the results to give a false impression of their value; 2) failure to credit others (former colleagues, students, associates) for research results or ideas; 3) plagiarism, use of other's published material (ideas, graphs, or tabular data) without permission or credit; 4) conflicts of commitment or interest in which work or ownership in a private firm in some way conflicts or detracts from the duties to the institution they represent or allows private gain through the individual's employment at the institution; 5) biased experimental design or interpretation of data to support public or private groups that have provided financial support for research.
  • (2) But over the Christmas period the Cahuzac story has continued to dominate headlines as some newspapers suggested Hollande might have a cabinet reshuffle both to detract from the Mediapart allegations and to draw a line under government disagreements over the handling of France's crisis-hit steel industry.
  • (3) The resulting disturbing, violent or disruptive behavior will severely detract from the quality of life the patient and family can share together.
  • (4) Neither TMP-SMZ nor amoxicillin produced hematologic effects that would detract from their continued use in children with infections caused by antibiotic-susceptible organisms.
  • (5) The search for new hypoxic cell radiosensitizers must not detract from the fact that a sensitizer of aerobic cells to low radiation doses is needed.
  • (6) But Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, warned that although the prosecutions of figures such as Savile were important, there was a danger they could detract from a pervasive problem.
  • (7) The majority of mothers do believe their child, with difficult situations and other family stressors occasionally detracting from a mother's willingness to accept the report.
  • (8) The study confirms that a communal orientation enhances satisfaction with a best friendship and that conflict and negativity detract from it.
  • (9) Look further and you see people in faked approximations of designer logos – that they've been traduced doesn't detract from their meaning; it gives them a new story.
  • (10) This should not detract from the fact that autoantibodies are a common secondary phenomenon which plays an important part in maintaining tissue microdebridement.
  • (11) Based on published articles and communication with representatives from each country, we examined whether the organization and conduct of these conferences in nine countries (United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) enhanced or detracted from achieving the stated conference goals and objectives.
  • (12) A medication's perceptual properties may have important and specific meanings for patients or clients that may support or detract from compliance.
  • (13) And none of this, he was convinced, detracted from his commitment to socialism.
  • (14) (tall fescue), and provides biological protection and enhanced fitness to its host, but its anti-mammalian ergot alkaloids detract from the usefulness of tall fescue as forage for livestock.
  • (15) Within the scape of a comparative long-term study between conservative and operative therapy of Perthes'-disease the effort was made to estimate the dimension of the psychic and social detraction in addiction to the method of treatment by a detailed inquiry of 116 patients as well as of their accompanying parents.
  • (16) A wider political solution is required to this crisis, but that does not detract from today’s rescue at sea.
  • (17) Of course, this is dreadful for the families involved, no one would want to detract from their distress, but neither should it prevent an objective examination of the complex picture revealed in the statistics.
  • (18) As part of a "health concepts" nursing course, students became much more aware of social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors that either enhanced or detracted from their ability to achieve their ideal life-styles.
  • (19) For anyone who clings to the idea that music can still soundtrack life's most elemental aspects, his answer would be a dream, though that doesn't detract from its sincerity.
  • (20) But Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that such artists were fighting a losing battle and that filming at concerts enhanced rather than detracted from the experience.