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The point intended to be hit, or object intended to be attained or affected. To be the aim of every dangerous shot. Shak.

ery man be contented with that which Providence allots him. Ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge. Johnson.

er, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling a way ambition: By that sin fell the angels. Shak. The pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres. Burke.

That part of moral philosophy which treats of virtue, its nature, and the means of attaining to it.

The attainment or reaching of any object, by effort, or in natural course; as, our arrival at this conclusion was wholly unexpected.

an object by effort, practice, study, inquiry, reasoning, or experiment. To arrive at, or attain to. When he arrived at manhood. Rogers. We arrive at knowledge of a law of nature by the generalization of facts. McCosh. If at great things thou wouldst arrive. Milton.

ng to facilitate the performance of certain actions; a system of principles and rules for attaining a desired end; method of doing well some special work; -- often contradistinguished from science or speculative principles; as, the art of building or engraving; the art of war; the art of navigation. Science is systemat…

One who aspires; one who eagerly seeks some high position or object of attainment. In consequence of the resignations . . . the way to greatness was left clear to a new set of aspirants. Macaulay.

To desire with eagerness; to seek to attain something high or great; to pant; to long; -- followed by to or after, and rarely by at; as, to aspire to a crown; to aspire after immorality. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; Aspiring to be angels, men rebel. Pope.

cess of ascertaining and declaring that a deceased person is one of "the blessed," or has attained the second degree of sanctity, -- usually a stage in the process of canonization. "The beatification of his spirit." Jer. Taylor.

A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth. Hooker.

by members of the order of the Garter; -- hence, a member of that order. (b) Anything the attainment of which is an object of great ambition; a distinction; a prize. "These [scholarships] were the blue ribbon of the college." Farrar.

sed balls on a level plat of greensward. Like an uninstructed bowler, . . . who thinks to attain the jack by delivering his bowl straightforward upon it. Sir W. Scott.

A genus of American jurassic dinosaurs. A length of sixty feet is believed to have been attained by these reptiles.

rm of plants of the modern Equiseta (the Horsetail or Scouring Rush family) but sometimes attaining the height of trees, and having the stem more or less woody within. See Acrogen, and Asterophyllite.

A method of attaining successively lower temperatures by utilizing the cooling effect of the expansion of one gas in condensing another less easily liquefiable, and so on.

To get possession of; to attain. Torment myself to catch the English throne. Shak.

a person or party; a principle which is advocated; that which a person or party seeks to attain. God befriend us, as our cause is just. Shak. The part they take against me is from zeal to the cause. Burke. Efficient cause, the agent or force that produces a change or redult. -- Final cause, the end, design, or object…

ms are not assumed to be indivisible, but merely the finest grade of subdivision hitherto attained. Chemistry deals with the changes in the composition and constitution of molecules. See Atom, Molecule.

Circuit or Circuity of action (Law), a longer course of proceedings than is necessary to attain the object in view. -- To make a circuit, to go around; to go a roundabout way. -- Voltaic or Galvanic circuit or circle, a continous electrical communication between the two poles of a battery; an arrangement of voltaic…