Attempt

How to spell attempt

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce attempt

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attempt mean?

1. verbTo make an effort to do or achieve something.
2. nounAn act of trying to do or achieve something.

Attempt in a sentence

• verb

  She decided to attempt the harder exam questions first.

• noun

  His first attempt at baking bread came out flat.

• verb

  Do not attempt the repair without switching off the power.

• noun

  Every attempt to reach the office by phone failed.

Where does attempt come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin verb attemptare, a compound of ad, meaning 'toward', and temptare, meaning 'to try, to feel out, or to test'. The original sense was literally to make a try at something or to put it to the test, and that root temptare is also the ancestor of the everyday word 'tempt', so an attempt and a temptation are distant cousins. English took the word in during the late 1300s by way of Old French attempter, and at first it carried a slightly darker edge, sometimes meaning to make a hostile move against someone or to try to seize power. Over time the neutral sense of simply making an effort won out. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the doubled 't' at the start (from the assimilated prefix) and the silent feeling of the 'mp' cluster before the final 't' both invite errors.

How the word is built

• at- (toward, from Latin ad-)
• tempt (from temptare: to try, to test)