What does "attending" mean?

A physician on the staff of a hospital, especially the principal one that supervises a patient's care.

What is a synonym for "attending"?

Common synonyms include: accessory, accompanying, ancillary, associated, attendance, attendance.

//əˈtɛndɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Noun

1
A physician on the staff of a hospital, especially the principal one that supervises a patient's care. Canada, US
"She's an attending in gastroenterology at Mass General."
2
the act of being present (at a meeting or event etc.) wordnet
3
the process whereby a person concentrates on some features of the environment to the (relative) exclusion of others wordnet

Verb

Adjective

1
That attend or attends; that is or are in attendance; attendant. not-comparable
2
Serving on the staff of a teaching hospital as a doctor. not-comparable
3
Attendant, concomitant. not-comparable
"Because so much of the character's self-loathing is manifested around his sexuality — his need to degrade the women with whom he identifies, the almost compulsive need to seduce a straight male actor, his malignant neglect of his lover — the casting of a woman in the part doubles, or even quadruples the attending implications and ironies."

Adjective

"We will exempt you from attending."

From attend + -ing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.