achieve

• atchieve (obsolete)

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman achever, Middle French achever, achiever et al., apparently from Late Latin *accappāre, present active infinitive of *accappō, from ad (“to”) + caput (“head”) + -ō (verbal suffix), or alternatively a construction based on Old French chief (“head”). Compare Catalan, Occitan, Portuguese and Spanish acabar, French achever.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈtʃiːv/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːv

achieve (third-person singular simple present achieves, present participle achieving, simple 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.]
   • I. Taylor

     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.]
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:

     I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.

   • 2013 January 22, Phil McNulty, “Aston Villa 2-1 Bradford (3-4)”, in BBC:

     Bradford may have lost on the night but they stubbornly protected a 3-1 first-leg advantage to emulate a feat last achieved by Rochdale in 1962.

   • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II-v

     Some are born great, some achieve greatness.

   • John Milton

     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.]
   • Prior

   Show all the spoils by valiant kings achieved.

   • William Shakespeare, Othello, II-i

   He hath achieved a maid / That paragons description.

• accomplish, effect, fulfil, fulfill, complete, execute, perform, realize, obtain. See accomplish

• achievement
• achiever

• achieve at OneLook Dictionary Search
• achieve in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.