9 uses
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Definition
to gain or reach something with effort
- If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.Book 1 — Miss Brooke (7% in)
- 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.Prelude (96% in)
- 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."Book 1 — Miss Brooke (48% in)
- 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.Book 1 — Miss Brooke (93% in)
- "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.Book 2 — Old and Young (97% in)
- 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.Book 3 — Waiting for Death (57% in)
- 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.Book 5 — The Dead Hand (7% in)
- 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.Book 7 — Two Temptations (32% in)
- 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.Book 8 — Sunset and Sunrise (93% in)
There are no more uses of "attain" in Middlemarch.
Typical Usage
(best examples)