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attain
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
attain
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
achieve/attain/reach your goal
▪ She has worked hard to achieve her goal of a job in the medical profession.
▪ They’re hoping to reach their goal of raising £10,000 for charity.
reach/attain manhood
▪ He had barely reached manhood when he married.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
never
▪ The mocked senility was never attained: Bouilhet diet at forty-eight, Flaubert at fifty-eight.
▪ As long as the elements never attain their natural places in an absolute sense, things will continue much as they are.
▪ That was one thing Jezrael had that she had never attained.
only
▪ But I could only attain to be thrilled and enchanted, as by the sound of a strain of music dying away.
▪ You only attain new levels of relative poverty.
▪ They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
■ NOUN
age
▪ Pool pairs of cells that have divided within a chosen time interval and culture until they attain the appropriate age.
▪ Regarding structure, most studies conclude that children attain concrete operations around age 6 or 7 independent of formal schooling.
▪ This was done upon the eldest son attaining the age of 21 years.
▪ The successful application of reversibility to liquid volume problems is not attained until about age 7.
child
▪ As soon as a child is born entitlement begins and is never questioned until the child itself attains economic independence.
▪ During concrete operational development, a child attains the use of fully logical operations for the first time.
▪ Shaping Sometimes the behaviours to be learned are too complicated for the child to attain at once.
▪ Most important, the concrete operational child attains reversibility of mental operations.
▪ In most cultures, children without formal schooling attain conservation as readily as children with schooling.
▪ A child must attain reversibility, learn to decenter perceptions, and be able to follow transformations.
▪ Regarding structure, most studies conclude that children attain concrete operations around age 6 or 7 independent of formal schooling.
degree
▪ I can not pretend that Mr James's book attains the same degree of enlightenment.
▪ But, second, in the vast majority of markets, efficient production can be attained with a high degree of competition.
end
▪ At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end.
▪ In my experience, people who tried to attain their ends by covert means came to unfortunate ends.
▪ He must have been very bitter and ready to invoke any means to attain his ends.
▪ Often, in fact, Gandhi was more interested in improving the human means than in attaining political ends.
goal
▪ Programme evaluation, through effectiveness auditing, is measuring the extent to which goals have been attained.
▪ Yet Bochy also recently pointed out to Gwynn that the player could attain some luminous goals, including 3, 000 hits.
▪ The methods we have outlined will ensure that your will-power is strong enough for you to attain your goals.
▪ Things that are useful in attaining goals come to have value to the child.
▪ After twenty weeks this dieter will have attained all the salt goals.
▪ Here is your opportunity to attain a goal.
▪ Do you feel ambitious enough to attain goals that previously you might have thought were out of your personal reach?
▪ Yet when a moment comes when I do not look, behold, they have attained their goal!
level
▪ These results confirm that transcripts of genes not implicated in deletion attained identical steady-state levels in the two strains.
▪ I would tell them that they could attain levels of quality and customer satisfaction greater than they had ever imagined.
▪ Tests are being devised for children with special needs expected to attain lower levels three to one.
▪ Managers and employees will be asked to attain levels of performance previously considered impossible.
▪ With a cash transfer the recipient of government assistance would attain a welfare level as shown by.
▪ The drug selected for monotherapy is then added and appropriate dosage adjustment made to attain therapeutic serum levels.
▪ Our aim is to encourage as many as possible to attain various levels within the award scheme.
▪ You only attain new levels of relative poverty.
means
▪ The continuation of farming is not so much the objective of the Directive but the means to attain its objectives.
▪ He must have been very bitter and ready to invoke any means to attain his ends.
▪ In co-evolution terms it means that herbivorous dinosaurs may have grown large as a means of attaining thermal stability.
▪ Often, in fact, Gandhi was more interested in improving the human means than in attaining political ends.
objective
▪ The continuation of farming is not so much the objective of the Directive but the means to attain its objectives.
▪ Efficiency relates to the cost in resources of attaining objectives.
▪ The more uncertain and defensive you are, the more difficult it will be to attain your objectives.
▪ We also object to flagrant waste, particularly of resources devoted to attaining our primary objectives.
▪ When their motivations are strong and their targets clear, they are capable of going to incredible lengths to attain their objectives.
position
▪ Since different societies have different value systems, the ways of attaining a high position will vary from society to society.
▪ The primates attained their dominant positions through a combination of military skill, physical prowess, and personal magnetism.
▪ To attain hydrostatic equilibrium the position of the lithosphere adjusts vertically in accordance with its density and thickness.
rank
▪ During the war lie served in the Royal Corps of Signals and attained the rank of Captain.
▪ Three of the sons followed military or naval careers, two attaining the rank of admiral.
▪ He attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Engineers.
▪ He pursued a military career and attained the rank of Brigadier.
size
▪ Internally, the mushroom bodies attain great size and complexity in Hymenoptera with elaborate behaviour.
▪ An apparently missing tail, for example, will often attain its original size within a couple of weeks.
▪ Or have earthworms already attained the maximum size possible within the physical limits imposed by a hydraulic skeleton?
standard
▪ June, too, had wanted to be noticed for herself and not just for fading to attain impossibly high standards.
▪ It articulates the Group's commitment to attaining the highest practical standards of health, safety and environmental protection in the workplace.
status
▪ Once a person has attained archetypal status in the eyes of the world, it is very hard to break it.
▪ Forbes has attained his second-place status without assembling the usual army of city and town coordinators, and without political endorsements.
▪ At puberty, males become warriors and killing an enemy is often a prerequisite of attaining full adult status.
▪ Few companies have yet attained this status, but many are well along the way.
▪ Their failure to attain status comparable to that of older market-sector professions corrodes' middle class, conservatism.
▪ The definition given by M.. Mauss has attained classical status, and more recent theories relate to it in some way.
▪ Most attain that status only because Britain's plants and animals have been so much studied.
target
▪ To make matters worse many dietary instructional leaflets required a reading age not attained by the target population.
■ VERB
help
▪ And he will be expected to use that information to improve performance and to help his company attain its strategic goals.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ India attained independence in 1947.
▪ Jean Arthur worked for a decade before attaining stardom.
▪ The balloonists attained an altitude of 33,000 feet.
▪ The latest model is capable of attaining speeds in excess of 300 kph.
▪ When migrating, birds may attain a height of three thousand metres or more.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Howard attracted many gifted people who have subsequently attained leadership roles in the Salvation Army.
▪ I would tell them that they could attain levels of quality and customer satisfaction greater than they had ever imagined.
▪ Often, in fact, Gandhi was more interested in improving the human means than in attaining political ends.
▪ She mounted the bike and wobbled precariously for several yards before attaining a kind of equilibrium along Small's Wynd and disappearing.
▪ Supervisors encourage you to set goals that stretch you but are achievable, and then reward you for attaining them.
▪ Together with this person, you can attain results far more spectacular than either of you could achieve alone.
▪ When Maine attained statehood in 1820, much of the interior was unsettled.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Attain

Attain \At*tain"\ ([a^]t*t[=a]n"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Attained (-t[=a]nd"); p. pr. & vb. n. Attaining.] [Of. atteinen, atteignen, atainen, OF. ateindre, ataindre, F. atteindre, fr. L. attingere; ad + tangere to touch, reach. See Tangent, and cf. Attinge, Attaint.]

  1. To achieve or accomplish, that is, to reach by efforts; to gain; to compass; as, to attain rest.

    Is he wise who hopes to attain the end without the means?
    --Abp. Tillotson.

  2. To gain or obtain possession of; to acquire. [Obs. with a material object.]
    --Chaucer.

  3. To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain. [Obs.]

    Not well attaining his meaning.
    --Fuller.

  4. To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at. ``Canaan he now attains.''
    --Milton.

  5. To overtake. [Obs.]
    --Bacon.

  6. To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.

    Syn: To Attain, Obtain, Procure.

    Usage: Attain always implies an effort toward an object. Hence it is not synonymous with obtain and procure, which do not necessarily imply such effort or motion. We procure or obtain a thing by purchase or loan, and we obtain by inheritance, but we do not attain it by such means.

Attain

Attain \At*tain"\, v. i.

  1. To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach.

    If by any means they might attain to Phenice.
    --Acts xxvii. 1

  2. Nor nearer might the dogs attain.
    --Sir W. Scott.

    To see your trees attain to the dignity of timber.
    --Cowper.

    Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this.
    --J. R. Green.

    2. To come or arrive, by an effort of mind.

    Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it.
    --Ps. cxxxix. 6.

Attain

Attain \At*tain"\, n. Attainment. [Obs.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
attain

c.1300, "to succeed in reaching," from ataign-, stem of Old French ataindre (11c., Modern French atteindre) "to come up to, reach, attain, endeavor, strive," from Vulgar Latin *attangere, corresponding to Latin attingere "to touch, to arrive at," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + tangere "to touch" (see tangent (adj.)). Latin attingere had a wide range of meanings, including "to attack, to strike, to appropriate, to manage," all somehow suggested by the literal sense "to touch." Related: Attained; attaining.

Wiktionary
attain

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To accomplish; to achieve. 2 To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain. 3 (context transitive English) To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at. 4 (context intransitive English) To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach. 5 To reach in excellence or degree; to equal. 6 (context obsolete English) To overtake.

WordNet
attain

  1. v. to gain with effort; "she achieved her goal despite setbacks" [syn: achieve, accomplish, reach]

  2. reach a point in time, or a certain state or level; "The thermometer hit 100 degrees"; "This car can reach a speed of 140 miles per hour" [syn: reach, hit]

  3. find unexpectedly; "the archeologists chanced upon an old tomb"; "she struck a goldmine"; "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake" [syn: fall upon, strike, come upon, light upon, chance upon, come across, chance on, happen upon, discover]

  4. reach a destination, either real or abstract; "We hit Detroit by noon"; "The water reached the doorstep"; "We barely made it to the finish line"; "I have to hit the MAC machine before the weekend starts" [syn: reach, make, hit, arrive at, gain]

Usage examples of "attain".

Beauty is abidingly self-enfolded but its lovers, the Many, loving it as an entire, possess it as an entire when they attain, for it was an entire that they loved.

East was bestowed, by the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the experience, of age.

The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be transferred from private property to public dominion, would have adjudged to the emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew, till he had attained, at least, the fourteenth year of his age.

The only difference between the schools is in the remedies employed, the size of dose administered, and the results attained.

It is against reason, utterly to deny Likeness by these while admitting it by the greater: tradition at least recognizes certain men of the civic excellence as divine, and we must believe that these too had in some sort attained Likeness: on both levels there is virtue for us, though not the same virtue.

John of Brienne, I cannot discover the name or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of his adoptive father.

The aeroplane, after it had attained a few hundred feet, seemed to merge into the dark background of night sky.

Thomas Wolsey, dean of Lincoln, and almoner to the king, surpassed in favor all his ministers, and was fast advancing towards that unrivalled grandeur which he afterwards attained.

From this, and much other evidence, geologists have deduced that the Altiplano is still gradually rising, but in an unbalanced manner with greater altitudes being attained in the northern part and lesser in the southern.

He there passed through the usual anchoretic battles with demons, and by prayer and ascetic exercise attained a rare power over nature.

How to her grace I might anon attain, And tell my woe unto my sovereign.

The term is therefore a generic one, comprising all those faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same species.

A cheerful and slightly drunk excursionist in the train had found this a theme for continual merriment at the general expense of the clergy and the Church, and something he had said had caused the Archdeacon to wonder whether perhaps he were being a stumbling-block to one of those little ones who had not yet attained detachment.

The last fact shows clearly that the higher powers of the mind can attain a high development on the basis of tactual and manipulatory abilities, and that these abilities can serve as the basis of a system of symbols of meanings hardly, if at all, less rich than is commonly developed from the basis of visual, auditory, and articulatory abilities.

The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant northern home and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, or, as it is called, the Lake Asphaltites, where the waves of the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no discharge of waters.