Search the Dictionary

A natural tendency inherent in a body to develop itself; an attempt; an effort. What conatus could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or to the sheep its fleece Paley.

ng to the government of the eleven Southern States of the United States which (1860-1865) attempted to establish an independent nation styled the Confederate States of America; as, the Confederate congress; Confederate money.

urse to another, as from one religion to another or from one party or sect to another. No attempt was made to convert the Moslems. Prescott.

To imitate; to attempt to resemble, as in manners or course of life. We copy instinctively the voices of our companions, their accents, and their modes of pronunciation. Stewart.

To attempt to attract the notice, admiration, or love of; to treat with a show of tenderness or regard, with a view to deceive and disappoint. You are coquetting a maid of honor. Swift.

Attempts to attract admoration, notice, or love, for the mere gratification of vanity; trifling in love. "Little affectations of coquetry." Addison.

ng to, or composed of, corpuscles, or small particles. Corpuscular philosophy, that which attempts to account for the phenomena of nature, by the motion, figure, rest, position, etc., of the minute particles of matter. -- Corpuscular theory (Opt.), the theory enunciated by Sir Isaac Newton, that light consists in the…

To bring back, or attempt to bring back, to propriety in morals; to reprove or punish for faults or deviations from moral rectitude; to chastise; to discipline; as, a child should be corrected for lying. My accuser is my 'prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault the other day, he did vow upon his knees he wou…

he physical or external world. Cosmothetic idealists (Metaph.), those who assume, without attempting to prove, the reality of external objects as corresponding to, and being the ground of, the ideas of which only the mind has direct cognizance. The cosmothetic idealists . . . deny that mind is immediately conscious of…

To oppose, as another plot, by plotting; to attempt to frustrate, as a stratagem, by stratagem. Every wile had proved abortive, every plot had been counterplotted. De Quinsey.

To attempt to gain; to solicit; to seek. They might almost seem to have courted the crown of martyrdem. Prescott. Guilt and misery . . . court privacy and silitude. De Quincey.

To have courage for; to attempt courageously; to venture to do or to undertake. What high concentration of steady feeling makes men dare every thing and do anything Bagehot. To wrest it from barbarism, to dare its solitudes. The Century.

Dearly; at a high price. If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear. Shak.

A beginning or first attempt; hence, a first appearance before the public, as of an actor or public speaker.

An attempt or disposition to deceive or lead into error; any declaration, artifice, or practice, which misleads another, or causes him to believe what is false; a contrivance to entrap; deception; a wily device; fraud. Making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit. Amos viii. 5. Fri…

A leader of the rabble; one who attempts to control the multitude by specious or deceitful arts; an unprincipled and factious mob orator or political leader.

expectation; to despair of. [Obs.] I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted. Milton.

One who, or that which, detects or brings to light; one who finds out what another attempts to conceal; a detector.

to make unfriendly or less friendly; to fill with discontent and unfriendliness. They had attempted to disaffect and discontent his majesty's late army. Clarendon.

ourage; as, he was discouraged in his undertaking; he need not be discouraged from a like attempt. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Col. iii. 21.