Meaning of attain | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To gain (an object or desired result).
   transitive
2. To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at (a place, time, state, etc.).
   transitive
3. To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.
   intransitive
4. To get at the knowledge of.
   obsolete, transitive
5. To reach in excellence or degree.
   obsolete, transitive
6. To reach a person after being behind them.
   obsolete, transitive

Equivalents

Examples

“To attain such a high level of proficiency requires hours of practice each day.”

“Lord Ross. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord. / Lord Willoughby. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.”

“[…] he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends.”

“[…] that’s the highest rank a citizen can attain!”

“[S]olitude is never easy to attain in a working-class home”

“But an absolutely right time arrival of all trains on the same day is never attained.”

“Where else could I […] hope to attain such an impressive income?”

“[…] my bones would rest, / That have but labour’d to attain this hour.”

“Canaan he now attains,”

“It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not attain their full growth and strength till thirty; but that women arrive at maturity by twenty.”

“the southern gales […] blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain”

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it.”

“if by any means they might attain to Phenice”

“1782, William Cowper, letter to Joseph Hill dated 11 November, 1782, in Private Correspondence of William Cowper, London: Henry Colburn, 1824, Volume 1, p. 222, You may not, perhaps, live to see your trees attain to the dignity of timber—I, nevertheless, approve of your planting, and the disinterested spirit that prompts you to it.”

“For, scarce a spear’s length from his haunch, / Vindictive toiled the blood-hounds staunch; / Nor nearer might the dogs attain, / Nor farther might the quarry strain.”

“Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this,”

“[…] Master Camden, sometimes acknowledgeth, sometimes denieth him for an English Earle. Not that I accuse him as inconstant to himself, but suspect my self not well attaining his meaning therein.”

“Yet notwithstanding as Those that first bring Honour into their Family, are commonly more worthy, then most that succeed: So the first President (if it be good) is seldome attained by Imitation.”

“The Earle finding […] the enemie retired, pursued with all celeritie into Scotland; hoping to haue ouer-taken the Scottish King, and to haue giuen him Battaile; But not attaining him in time, sate downe before the Castle of Aton […] which in a small time hee tooke.”

CEFR level