achieve
pronunciation
How to pronounce achieve in British English:
UK [əˈtʃiːv]
How to pronounce achieve in American English:
US [əˈtʃiːv]
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- Verb:
- to gain with effort
Word Origin
- achieve
- achieve: [14] Achieve is related to chief. It comes from Old French achever ‘bring to an end’, or literally ‘bring to a head’, which was based on the phrase a chief ‘to a head’ (chief derives ultimately from Latin caput ‘head’). The heraldic meaning of achievement, ‘coat of arms’, comes from the notion that the escutcheon was granted as a reward for a particular achievement. Over the centuries it has evolved an alternative form, hatchment [16].=> chief, hatchment
- achieve (v.)
- early 14c., from Old French achever (12c.) "to finish, accomplish, complete," from phrase à chef (venir) "at an end, finished," or Vulgar Latin *accapare, from Late Latin ad caput (venire); both the French and Late Latin phrases meaning literally "to come to a head," from stem of Latin caput "head" (see capitulum). The Lat. caput, towards the end of the Empire, and in Merov[ingian] times, took the sense of an end, whence the phrase ad caput venire, in the sense of to come to an end .... Venire ad caput naturally produced the Fr. phrase venir à chef = venir à bout. ... From this chief, O.Fr. form of chef (q.v.) in sense of term, end, comes the Fr. compd. achever = venir à chef, to end, finish. [Auguste Brachet, "An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language," transl. G.W. Kitchin, Oxford, 1878] Related: Achieved; achieving.
Example
- 1. The proposal is intended to achieve two inconsistent objectives .
- 2. How will you achieve these goals ?
- 3. What exactly do you want to achieve ?
- 4. Action will usually achieve far better results .
- 5. And that is what I am hoping to achieve .