1. to regard as resulting from a specified cause: She attributes his bad temper to ill health. 2. to consider as a quality or characteristic of the person, thing, group, etc., indicated: to attribute intelligence to one's colleagues.

Attribute means something rather similar to "pay tribute". So, for example, an award winner who pays tribute to an inspiring professor is, in a sense, attributing her success to the professor. Though if you attribute your fear of dogs to an incident in your childhood, you're not exactly praising the nasty dog that bit you way back when.

Synonyms for ATTRIBUTING: ascribing, crediting, blaming, imputing, linking, referring, connecting, accrediting, attaching, assigning

The earliest known use of the noun attributing is in the mid 1600s. OED's only evidence for attributing is from before 1631, in the writing of John Donne, poet and Church of England clergyman. attributing is formed within English, by derivation.

attribute sth to sth Her success can be attributed to three main factors. attribute sth to sb This idea has long been attributed to Keynes, but in fact he was not the first to think of it. In this sense …

An attribute is a quality or characteristic given to a person, group, or some other thing. Your best attribute might be your willingness to help others, like when you stopped traffic so the duck family could cross the street.

to believe that a person or thing has a certain quality or characteristic: It is a mistake to attribute too little intelligence to one's colleagues. attributed the remarks to me. a quality or property …