attribute

verb

• regard something as being caused by:he attributed the firm’s success to the efforts of the managing director his resignation was attributed to stress
• ascribe a work or remark to (a particular author, artist, or speaker):the building was attributed to Inigo Jones
• regard a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by:ancient peoples attributed magic properties to certain stones

noun

• 1a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something:flexibility and mobility are the key attributes of Britain’s army
• a material object recognized as symbolic of a person, especially a conventional object used in art to identify a saint or mythical figure: it was not until the end of the fifteenth century that the sandglass was depicted as the attribute of Father Time

• 2 Computing a piece of information which determines the properties of a field or tag in a database or a string of characters in a display.

• 3 Grammar an attributive adjective or noun.

• 4 Statistics a real property which a statistical analysis is attempting to describe.