attractantn.adj.

1814 Satirist; or, Monthly Meteor July 34 The crowds which this distinguished person attracted, could not have been recruited against the naturally repellant qualities of church walls and surplices, without some peculiarity in the attractant.

1889 C. V. Riley Rep. Entomol. 1888 34 A large number of chemicals have been tried as attractants to the adult beetles.

1926 Jrnl. Econ. Entomol. 19 546 If the fundamentals of ‘attractants’ and repellents were to be studied, special apparatus for measuring or recording the responses of insects of these substances must be developed.

1953 Brit. Commonw. Forest Terminol.: Pt. I (Empire Forestry Assoc.) 14 Attractant, a substance attractive to insects, rodents, etc., used in population surveys or in control traps or baits.

1955 Sci. Amer. Aug. 76/3 It is neither an attractant nor a repellent to unconditioned salmon.

1959 Times 9 Jan. 13/2 The attractive scents of female butterflies are produced by scattered gland cells... Other examples are the sexual attractants of cockroaches.

2004 S. Mehta Maximum City 431 The night before the wedding is stupendously uncomfortable. The mosquito repellent I spread on my skin functions as an attractant.

1926 A. L. Melander & A. Spuler in Bull. Washington Coll. Agric. Exper. Station No. 199. 5 The purpose of this experiment was to determine if certain flavors were attractant or repellant to weevils.

1938 Amer. Midland Naturalist 19 159 This species [of bird] was noted frequently in May and June... Scattered bushes or small trees seemed to provide the attractant features.

1998 A. K. Shukla et al. Biol. Pollen 71 Whenever pollen is attractant, it is produced copiously in the blossom.

2013 Kindred Spirit Mar. 79/3 Lemon grass works conveniently by mimicking the honey bees' attractant pheromone.