Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Keep "attritive" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
If two options seem close, choose the one that best matches the audience and purpose of the sentence.
Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "attritive" intact in the sentence you are editing.
Check whether the replacement sounds more formal, casual, emotional, technical, or forceful than the original word.
Read the full sentence after the swap. Keep the synonym only when the sentence becomes clearer or more precise.
Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "attritive", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
If the synonym makes the sentence slower, vaguer, or more dramatic than intended, keep "attritive" or choose a simpler alternative from the closest-match group.
4 total sentences available.
1858, Hugh Miller, Rambles of a Geologist, Chapter 5, in The Cruise of the Betsey; with Rambles of a Geologist, Edinburgh: Constable, p. 302, […] the clay […] had gradually been moulded, under the attritive influences of the elements, into series of alternating ridges and furrows,
Source: wiktionary
Do you mark how the wistaria, sun-impacted on this wall here, distills and penetrates this room as though (light-unimpeded) by secret and attritive progress from mote to mote of obscurity’s myriad components?
Source: wiktionary
That certain works did thus survive time’s attritive passage, and that people did continue to agree in their estimation of them would by no means show […] that their judgments were both objective and correct.
Source: wiktionary
From a nearby town came “crews of eager young men” who “pitched in” through the “attritive, swirling, arctic-like night.”
Source: wiktionary
Closest matches include abrasive, fretting, galling, gnawing, grinding.
Compare the replacement against real sentence context. This entry includes sample sentences so you can check tone, grammar, and meaning before swapping words.