I.nounCOLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a belated attempt
▪ a belated attempt to increase support
a bold attempt
▪ It was a bold attempt to win back public confidence.
a coup attempt
▪ There have been repeated coup attempts against the government.
a desperate attempt
▪ Brian’s parents agreed to the treatment in a desperate attempt to save his life.
a futile attempt/effort
▪ a futile attempt to save the paintings from the flames
▪ My efforts to go back to sleep proved futile.
a record attempt (=an attempt to break a record)
▪ They will make another record attempt next year.
a rescue attempt/effort
▪ One fire fighter was severely burned in the rescue attempt.
a suicide attempt
▪ He was admitted to a psychiatric facility after a suicide attempt.
a vain attempt/bid/effort
▪ People close their windows at night in a vain attempt to shut out the sound of gunfire.
abandoned...attempt
▪ They abandoned their attempt to recapture the castle.
abortive attempt/effort
▪ an abortive attempt to reform local government
an attempted/abortive/failed coup (=one that did not succeed)
▪ There was an attempted coup against Togo’s military dictator.
an escape attempt/bid
▪ She made several unsuccessful escape attempts before finally getting away.
an unsuccessful attempt/bid/effort
▪ We made several unsuccessful attempts to tackle the problem.
assassination attempt (=when someone tries but fails to kill someone else)
▪ He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt .
attempt suicide (=try to kill yourself)
▪ She had attempted suicide twice.
attempt/do/ask etc the impossible
▪ I just want to be able to buy healthy food at a reasonable price. Is that asking the impossible?
attempted murder (=the crime of trying to kill someone)
▪ I am arresting you for attempted murder.
attempted rape
▪ He was convicted of attempted rape.
attempted robbery
▪ He admitted attempted robbery and was given a suspended sentence.
attempted theft
▪ He was charged with attempted theft.
attempt/effort to persuade sb
▪ Leo wouldn’t agree, despite our efforts to persuade him.
attempt/mount a rescue (=try to rescue someone)
▪ The stormy conditions made it impossible to mount a rescue.
brave effort/attempt
▪ the brave efforts of the medical staff to save his life
calculated attempt
▪ a calculated attempt to deceive the American public
clumsy attempt
▪ David made a clumsy attempt to comfort us.
clumsy attempt
▪ a clumsy attempt to catch the ball
deliberate attempt
▪ a deliberate attempt to humiliate her
determined attempt/effort
▪ She was making a determined effort to give up smoking.
earnest attempt/effort etc
failed in...attempt
▪ He failed in his attempt to regain the world title.
frantic effort/attempt
▪ Despite our frantic efforts, we were unable to save the boy’s life.
fruitless attempt/exercise
▪ a fruitless attempt to settle the dispute
▪ So far, their search has been fruitless.
lame attempt
▪ a lame attempt to deflect criticism
puny effort/attempt
▪ a puny attempt at humour
resist an attempt to do sth
▪ The rest of the board resisted his attempts to change the way things were done.
try/attempt to escape
▪ Some prisoners tried to escape, but most were recaptured or shot.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
abortive
▪ In 1909 an abortive attempt was made, by the present owner's grandfather, to produce hydroelectric power.
▪ An abortive attempt was made by Aprista newspapers to prove that the university had misappropriated public funds.
▪ The charges against Enrile arose from the abortive coup attempt of December 1989, the most serious military insurrection Aquino to date.
▪ He soon drifted away from his hometown to Rome, where he made an abortive attempt to complete law school.
brave
▪ A brave attempt, but ruined by the fact that neither of the elements are really up to much.
▪ The success of President Mohammad Khatami's brave attempt to democratize the country hangs in the balance.
▪ A brave attempt, but spoiled by poor execution.
▪ Richard Body has made a brave attempt to shed the mythology and propaganda, and to expose farming objectives to public debate.
▪ It had been a brave attempt and was recognised as such.
conscious
▪ In both examples, a conscious attempt has been made-to segment the market. 11.
▪ It is squarely in the scientific tradition and is a conscious attempt to apply scientific method to international relations.
▪ But any conscious attempt to disregard this proportionality would inflict unnecessary losses and suffering.
deliberate
▪ Therefore it is easy to assume that this must be a deliberate, callous attempt to inflict hurt.
▪ But the difference really shows in the deliberate attempt to abandon traditional forms of school discipline.
▪ There were deliberate attempts to develop elements of both high and popular culture in music, poetry, dance, and games.
▪ Apprised of this, the Friendship crew discounted it as a deliberate attempt to mislead them.
▪ What effect would a deliberate attempt to change this image have?
▪ The enterprise of science consists in the proposal of highly falsifiable hypotheses, followed by deliberate and tenacious attempts to falsify them.
▪ I knew it was a deliberate attempt from the word go to bring the band down.
▪ Planned towns were deliberate attempts to exploit the economic possibilities of a site; and like any other investment could go wrong.
desperate
▪ It's just a desperate attempt to make Sandra seem interesting.
▪ Prosecutors say it was around this time that Kim conceived a fraud scheme in a desperate attempt to save his conglomerate.
▪ Joy made one last desperate attempt and produced the most horrendous squeak ever, like a hare caught by a harvest scythe.
▪ She made a desperate attempt to move.
▪ Flights took place sporadically throughout the month in a desperate attempt to build up stockpiles of supplies before the winter.
▪ He made two desperate attempts to recoup by staging the kind of garish spectacle that had once lured customers to the Falls.
▪ In a last desperate attempt to free himself of investigation, Nixon dismissed the special prosecutor Cox in October 1973.
▪ A desperate attempt to make some capital out of the black passed pawn on b2.
early
▪ Edmund's early attempts at opposition seem to have come to nothing.
▪ Many early attempts at electronic markets have failed because these basic conditions were not met.
▪ In 1901 Hobhouse made an early attempt at accounting for the evolution of mental structure.
▪ For example, early attempts to organize financial community were not successful.
▪ An earlier attempt had been withdrawn immediately after the 19 October 1987 Wall Street crash.
▪ Adding fuel to the fire, some early attempts at lower-fat offerings were truly disappointing.
▪ An earlier attempt at a Picture Prices Current had already folded some years before.
futile
▪ Policy strategies which attack the social and economic determinants of ill-health are dismissed as futile attempts at social engineering.
▪ A number of women were quite bitter about their futile attempts to get clergy to help.
▪ These are the remains of unfortunate wretches driven to kill themselves in a futile attempt to escape the torments of the Castle.
▪ They showed no qualms in spending £3 billion in a futile attempt to prop up the Pound.
serious
▪ John had made quite a serious attempt to stop him joining the mining expedition, and then had dropped it.
▪ Yet most managers in most companies make no serious attempt to do that.
▪ It was too early in the trip for a serious attempt and all of us were decidedly under the weather.
▪ This had been consolidated in power by the end of the fourteenth century, after the one serious attempt to overthrow it.
▪ The 1970s saw the beginning of serious attempts to develop remedial services in local authorities.
▪ When those techniques have been mastered, the student is ready to make his first serious destruction attempt.
▪ The 1970s saw the beginning of serious and substantial attempts to understand and improve the financial reporting practices of public sector organizations.
▪ When comprehensive schools became the norm there was still no serious attempt to rethink the curriculum or the values incorporated within it.
unsuccessful
▪ On March 4, however, 30 soldiers made an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government.
▪ Rossignol and Phillis theorize that this pattern of caffeine use may reflect an unsuccessful attempt by the women to self-medicate with caffeine.
▪ If it is, you have probably tried to create the new database twice, after an unsuccessful first attempt.
▪ Six days later, after unsuccessful attempts to re-establish contact, the company declared it permanently out of service.
▪ At an earlier hearing the court heard that the police had made unsuccessful attempts to serve the complaint.
▪ In 1988 he made an unsuccessful attempt to challenge Mr Hattersley for the deputy leadership.
vain
▪ Fifi was back at the bars and stretching out her hand in a vain attempt to reach the steel tray.
▪ Atmel is spending $ 400 million this year in a vain attempt to meet demand.
▪ Curling his toes in a vain attempt to frustrate the inhospitable lino, Mungo watched, fascinated.
▪ Something walking across her grave ... or the forces in heaven laughing at her vain attempts to re-write her future?
▪ People close their windows at night in a vain attempt to shut out the sound of sirens and gunfire.
▪ Once, I dived full-length across the court in a vain attempt to retrieve the ball.
▪ In a vain attempt to maintain her independence, she spent Monday and Tuesday nights at home - alone.
▪ The protesters flung handfuls of earth into the trenches in a vain attempt to lift the siege of the West Bank town.
■ NOUN
assassination
▪ It was clear he had had nothing to do with the assassination attempt.
▪ There was shouting, the kind of confused commotion that usually attends an assassination attempt.
▪ The White Lions protected him from many assassination attempts and his personal retinue of Sapherian wizards countered all death-spells.
▪ So far, no material evidence has linked Pyongyang to the assassination attempt.
▪ The assassination attempt at Rastenburg last year ... it caused him grave damage.
▪ Patricio Martnez survived the assassination attempt.
▪ He addressed a crowd of his civilian supporters at Baabda on Oct. 12, when he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
▪ The assassination attempt on his life had been thwarted and his master plan on the Continent was going exactly to plan.
suicide
▪ There are several measures which might reduce the chances of a suicide attempt in an individual at risk.
▪ Shea said the sparse cell where Salvi is housed is designed to frustrate suicide attempts.
▪ The father continued the suicide attempt but he was rescued by police.
▪ Depression has been a lifelong struggle for me, and 17 years ago I was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
▪ The court heard the girl has made several suicide attempts and is still receiving treatment.
▪ He sloshed around in a cold river in a halfhearted suicide attempt.
▪ Mr Jamshidi has recently left hospital after slashing his wrists in his own suicide attempt.
▪ He was taken to hospital on July 29 with bullet wounds to the chest, apparently the result of a suicide attempt.
■ VERB
abandon
▪ Loretta decided she would have to abandon her attempt to see Veronica for the rest of the day.
▪ Helen watched my grandmother with a peculiar horror, for my grandmother had abandoned all attempts to make herself presentable.
▪ Charles realized that he must abandon the attempt to re-assert the Forest rights enjoyed by his medieval predecessors.
▪ It abandons the attempt to detect a class struggle between exploiters and exploited within advanced capitalism.
▪ Isabel abandoned the attempt and fought to regain her control instead.
▪ In reality it was simply a recognition that the government had abandoned any serious attempt to keep monetary growth within targets.
fail
▪ You have failed in your attempt to convince me of the coincidence between the bourgeois and the human.
▪ After contact they zoom away, Doppler-shifting into the horizon, which is littered with failed attempts.
▪ April 23-24 Baker fails in his attempt to persuade Assad to moderate his position during talks in Damascus.
▪ A failed attempt to relax at bedtime causes more anxiety and can condition you to associate relaxation techniques with insomnia.
▪ His failed attempts in seducing the young woman angered him to the point of incarcerating her.
▪ One prime minister was assassinated by the Brothers; they failed in an attempt on Nasser himself.
▪ The Democratic National Committee, in its failed attempt to match Republican fund raising, went a little bananas.
make
▪ Albert panicked, and put the receiver down, which made the next attempt more difficult.
▪ Congress did make feeble attempts to regain its honor.
▪ The assassin had made two attempts upon her life.
▪ With remarkable poise, he quickly put the two broken pieces in one hand and made an attempt to paddle canoe-style.
▪ He's made 2 escape attempts and had a reputation for persistent violence.
▪ She makes another attempt to take me by the hand and pull me forward.
▪ He had made 2 previous attempts to commit suicide.
▪ He'd made no attempt to hold back as he knew there was more to come.
prevent
▪ Citizens died on the church steps in their attempt to prevent altar-pieces being taken away.
▪ But once again, our attempt to prevent bad management made good management impossible.
▪ Despite Brett's attempt to prevent it, the firebombs had been detonated.
▪ The rule is an attempt to prevent harm to pets or rare species that may wander into the traps.
▪ Uefa is to rule on Leeds's decision to ban visiting supporters in an attempt to prevent further violence.
▪ In an attempt to prevent his mouth from falling open, a woollen strap had been passed beneath his chin.
▪ A judge said it is the duty of the courts to support any attempts being made to prevent crimes of that nature.
▪ It might also start by attempts to prevent the transportation of strikebreakers or goods, and a clash would follow police intervention.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a last-ditch attempt/effort etc
▪ Despite his bulk, he jumped several fences in a last-ditch attempt to escape.
▪ Horrified by his latest intentions, they were perhaps genuinely considering a last-ditch attempt to save him from himself.
▪ Last night, Mr Jones said he was involved in a last-ditch effort to save the unit.
▪ Munich had inspired a last-ditch attempt to bring down Chamberlain and save the peace.
▪ Not as a second-rate effort or a last-ditch effort.
▪ So finally, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the exercise as a whole, the following workshop activity was developed.
▪ The Republican victories came despite a last-ditch effort by the president to help Democratic candidates.
conscious effort/decision/attempt etc
▪ Accepting our human limitations in these high-pressure times, though, takes conscious effort.
▪ And each time the child has to make a new conscious effort like that, there is an opportunity to lose concentration.
▪ I made a conscious decision to do more than persevere in the remaining years I have with my voice.
▪ In both examples, a conscious attempt has been made-to segment the market. 11.
▪ It's a conscious decision and I think it's important that men understand a woman who is offering an alternative lifestyle.
▪ Just lately I have made a conscious effort to really look at the book.
▪ Other subjects - like calculus or computing - can not be learned without some conscious effort.
▪ What varies, and varies dramatically, is the conscious effort with which they are identified and undertaken.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a field-goal attempt
▪ After four attempts, Mike finally passed his driving test.
▪ All my attempts to get the machine working failed miserably.
▪ It was a deliberate attempt to mislead the voters.
▪ The climbers will make another attempt to reach the summit today.
▪ The government has announced that it will fund an extra 10,000 doctors in an attempt to reduce waiting times for operations.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Dissent has occurred at times among university students in attempts to radicalise dominant ideas.
▪ During a meeting at the Diamond police restrained attempts by loyalist and Catholic youths to break through their fines.
▪ He had been told also, in whispered confidence, that two attempts against the target had failed.
▪ It began an attempt to do this in several policy documents.
▪ The attempt at adding-machine accuracy shows how serious the priests were about numbering the new saints bound for heaven.
▪ They ploughed cash into marketing attempts and even won a prize from the local council.
▪ This was an incredible result bearing in mind the general statistics of 98 percent failure rates reported for most dieting attempts.
II.verbCOLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
coup
▪ In 1972 his own principle aide, General Oufkir, who ruled the country in the king's name attempted a coup.
▪ Since this month's mutiny, Guei has arrested 35 officers, including four colonels, for attempting a coup.
▪ Ivory Coast's government accused supporters of former prime minister Alassane Outtara of attempting a military coup.
▪ In March 1988, a group of junior officers attempted a coup.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A rescue was attempted by Coast Guards, but it was not successful.
▪ Any prisoner who attempts to escape will be shot.
▪ No one has attempted this experiment before.
▪ Someone had attempted to open the car door.
▪ They are attempting to become the first to climb Everest without oxygen tanks.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the time, ScotRail was also attempting to get through a similar application for the junction at Westerton, outside Glasgow.
▪ Brown believes the Greys are attempting to speed human evolution and enhance our spirituality by creating humans with some Grey genes.
▪ Do not attempt any diet without consulting your family doctor or specialist.
▪ For instance, the company is attempting to bring Internet access to a mass consumer audience through an agreement with Continental Cablevision.
▪ Some analysts are attempting to discipline the confused setting, primarily by studying what has happened in similar circumstances.
▪ These questions are especially germane in comparative research, where the analyst attempts to specify how the structure-function patterns vary between states.
▪ Vying for your custom, each site attempts to provide something a little different.