As intense, initially sinusoidal waves propagate in fluids, shocks form and excess attenuation of the wave occurs. We present data indicating that shock formation is not necessary for the occurrence of excess attenuation in nonlinear, lossy media, i.e., air‐saturated, porous materials. An empirical equation is used to describe the excess attenuation of intense sinusoids in porous materials. The acoustic nonlinearity of and the excess attenuation in porous materials may be predicted directly from dc flow resistivity data. An empirical relationship is used to relate an acoustic nonlinearity parameter to the fundamental frequency and relative dc nonlinearity of two structurally different materials.