Search the Dictionary

e of being held, naintained, or defended, as against an assailant or objector, or againts attempts to take or process; as, a tenable fortress, a tenable argument. If you have hitherto concealed his sight, Let it be tenable in your silence still. Shak. I would be the last man in the world to give up his cause when it wa…

To utter threats against; to menace; to inspire with apprehension; to alarm, or attempt to alarm, as with the promise of something evil or disagreeable; to warn. Let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. Acts iv. 17.

n of metals (Alchem.), the conversion of base metals into gold or silver, a process often attempted by the alchemists. See Alchemy, and Philosopher's stone, under Philosopher.

The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power; disloyalty; treachery. The treason of the murthering in the bed. Chaucer.

om the oppression of the patricians, or nobles, and to defend their liberties against any attempts that might be made upon them by the senate and consuls.

To essay; to attempt; to endeavor. Let us try . . . to found a path. Milton. To try on. (a) To put on, as a garment, to ascertain whether it fits the person. (b) To attempt; to undertake. [Slang] Dickens.

Agitated, as with conflicting passions; disturbed. His dire attempt, which, nigh the birth Now rolling, boils in his tumultuous breast. Milton.

self; to engage in; to enter upon; to take in hand; to begin to perform; to set about; to attempt. To second, or oppose, or undertake The perilous attempt. Milton.

That which is undertaken; any business, work, or project which a person engages in, or attempts to perform; an enterprise.

Finished without a nap. I did not attempt her with a threadbare name, Unnapped with meritorious actions. Beau. & Fl.

some other form of religion; to deprive of some Protestant feature or characteristic. The attempt to unprotestantize the Church of England. Froude.

Not seconded; not supported, aided, or assisted; as, the motion was unseconded; the attempt was unseconded.

of forge or efficacy; effecting no purpose; fruitless; ineffectual; as, vain toil; a vain attempt. Bring no more vain oblations. Isa. i. 13. Vain is the force of man To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden.

Act or process of attempting to give an arbitrary market value or price to a commodity by governmental interference, as by maintaining a purchasing fund, making loans to producers to enable them to hold their products, etc.; -- used chiefly of such action by Brazil.

he seas. J. Dryden, Jr. To venture at, or To venture on or upon, to dare to engage in; to attempt without any certainty of success; as, it is rash to venture upon such a project. "When I venture at the comic style." Waller.

sessed by one department of government to forbid or prohibit the carrying out of projects attempted by another department; especially, in a constitutional government, a power vested in the chief executive to prevent the enactment of measures passed by the legislature. Such a power may be absolute, as in the case of the…

believe the girl has virtue. M. And if she has, I should be the last man in the world to attempt to corrupt it. Goldsmith.

An ineffectual attempt to vomit.

apid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortices.

all this waste of wealth loss of blood. Milton. He will never . . . in the way of waste, attempt us again. Shak. Little wastes in great establishments, constantly occurring, may defeat the energies of a mighty capital. L. Beecher.