English
achieve
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /əˈtʃiːv/
Verb

achieve (achieves, present participle achieving; past and past participle achieved)

  1. (intransitive) To succeed in something, now especially in academic performance. [from 14th c.]
  2. (transitive) To carry out successfully; to accomplish. [from 14th c.]
    • Supposing faculties and powers to be the same, far more may be achieved in any line by the aid of a capital, invigorating motive than without it.
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To conclude, finish, especially successfully. [14th-18th c.]
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.1:
      Full many Countreyes they did overronne, / From the uprising to the setting Sunne, / And many hard adventures did atchieve […]
  4. (transitive) To obtain, or gain (a desired result, objective etc.), as the result of exertion; to succeed in gaining; to win. [from 14th c.]
    • c. 1601-1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II-v
      Some are born great, some achieve greatness.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 10”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      Thou hast achieved our liberty.
  5. (obsolete, intransitive) To conclude, to turn out. [14th-16th c.]
  6. (transitive, now literary) To obtain (a material thing). [from 15th c.]
    Show all the spoils by valiant kings achieved.
    • c. 1603-1604, William Shakespeare, Othello, II-i
      He hath achieved a maid / That paragons description.
Synonyms Translations Translations

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.005
Offline English dictionary