Attempted

How to spell attempted

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce attempted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attempted mean?

1. verbMade an effort to do or achieve something, especially something difficult.
2. adjectiveDescribing an act that was tried but not necessarily completed, often used of crimes.

Attempted in a sentence

• verb

  She attempted to fix the leaking pipe before calling a plumber.

• adjective

  The detectives charged him with attempted burglary after the failed break-in.

• verb

  The climbers attempted the summit twice before the storm forced them back.

• adjective

  The report described an attempted escape from the prison yard.

Where does attempted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'attempt', which English took from the Old French 'atempter', itself descended from the Latin 'attemptare' (also spelled 'attentare'). That Latin verb was built from the prefix 'ad-', meaning 'toward', and 'temptare', meaning 'to try, to test, or to feel out'. The same 'temptare' root also gives us 'tempt' and 'temptation', so at heart 'attempt' simply means to make a try at something. English adopted the word in the late 1300s, originally with the stronger sense of trying to attack or seize, which survives in legal phrases like 'attempted robbery'. The spelling trap is the silent 'p' wedged between the 'm' and the 't', a leftover from the Latin 'temptare' that is easy to drop when writing quickly.

How the word is built

• at- (variant of ad-: toward)
• tempt (from Latin temptare: to try, test)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)