All 9 Uses of
attain
in
Middlemarch
- Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognizable deed.†
Chpt Prelunattained = not gained or reached despite effortstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unattained means not and reverses the meaning of attained. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.†
Chpt 1 *attained = gained or reached something with effort
- For he was not one of those gentlemen who languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the topmost bough—the charms which "Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff, Not to be come at by the willing hand."†
Chpt 1unattainable = not able to be gained or reached with effortstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unattainable means not and reverses the meaning of attainable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- At the age of two-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities ready mixed, with a flavor of resignation as required.†
Chpt 1attained = gained or reached something with effort
- "I quite agree with you," said Will, determined to change the situation—"so much so that I have made up my mind not to run that risk of never attaining a failure.†
Chpt 2attaining = gaining or reaching something with effort
- In conduct these ends had been attained; but the difficulty of making his Key to all Mythologies unimpeachable weighed like lead upon his mind; and the pamphlets—or "Parerga" as he called them—by which he tested his public and deposited small monumental records of his march, were far from having been seen in all their significance.†
Chpt 3attained = gained or reached something with effort
- Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish you to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch.†
Chpt 5attain = gain or reach something with effort
- He had said to himself that the only winning he cared for must be attained by a conscious process of high, difficult combination tending towards a beneficent result.†
Chpt 7attained = gained or reached something with effort
- That is a rare and blessed lot which some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd—to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good in us.†
Chpt 8
Definition:
to gain or reach something with effort