achieve
Americanverb (used with object)
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achieves,
present (3rd person singular)
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achieved,
past participle, past
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achieving
present participle
verb (used without object)
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achieves,
present (3rd person singular)
-
achieved,
past participle, past
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achieving
present participle
verb
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to bring to a successful conclusion; accomplish; attain
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to gain as by hard work or effort
to achieve success
Synonym Usage
See do 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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achievernoun
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superachievernoun
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outachieveverb (used with object)
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achievableadjective
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preachievedadjective
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unachievableadjective
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unachievedadjective
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well-achievedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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achievesimple
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achievessimple
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have achievedperfect
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has achievedperfect
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am achievingprogressive
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are achievingprogressive
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is achievingprogressive
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have been achievingperfect progressive
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has been achievingperfect progressive
Past
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achievedsimple
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had achievedperfect
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was achievingprogressive
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were achievingprogressive
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had been achievingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of achieve
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English acheven, from Old French achever “to finish,” from phrase a chef “to (the) head,” i.e., “to conclusion”; see chief
Explanation
If you achieve something, you've reached a goal. Achievements aren't accidents. If you stumble upon a treasure chest, you haven't achieved something; however, achieving a promotion to become CEO is another story. If someone asks you to give an example of the word achieve, you can always reach for Shakespeare's much quoted remark from his play Twelfth Night. In Act II, Scene V, the character Malvolio says, ". . . some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Pundits like to throw that quote around when talking about politicians. Of course, they usually disagree about if, when, and how the politician achieved greatness.
Vocabulary lists containing achieve
The AP English Exam: The Language of the Test
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Workshop 1, Part 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That was what O'Connor hoped to achieve during these early days of testing the app, before launching it fully.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
"Our work indicates that we could use slightly slower initial shocks and still achieve full melting of the diamond in our NIF implosions," said Millot.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
You don’t want to go the latter route and, given that you are debt-free, I have every confidence that you will achieve that.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Are they hopeful at least that they’ll achieve what they want to before the robots take over?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Maybe Sapiens had other aspirations, and were consciously willing to make their lives harder in order to achieve them.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Neil: Hopefully he helps the team progress and achieves Euro 2028 qualification.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
As the company achieves notable growth — sales more than doubled in the latest quarter — it’s also impressing Wall Street with its profit performance.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
FKT is short for the “fastest known time” that a person or small group achieves on a particular course, usually somewhere it would be difficult or impossible to host an actual race.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
A griddle achieves this effortlessly, because the juices have nowhere else to go.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
After nine years—in April 1957—Joey finally achieves twelve consecutive negative swabs for Hansen’s disease, and she is allowed to leave Carville.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
The buyback caught investors offside and thus achieved its short-term goal: yields fell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
What Sunderland and Regis le Bris achieved last season was close to miraculous, as they went from pretty much unanimous relegation tips to Europa League qualification.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
Using an 18-base overhang, the researchers achieved a joining efficiency of 44%.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026
What we saw onscreen, along with the catchy music she made, was, in her telling, the fruit of a creative yield achieved by pressing beyond her breaking point.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2026
The only thing they’d achieved, coming to the alternate world, was to doom more people.
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Managing the makeup of the roughly $31 trillion Treasury market has been among the tools it has deployed toward achieving that goal.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Nearly 9.8 million investors sought a piece of the company ahead of its debut, with fewer than one in 5,000 achieving success.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Judge Huw Rees said it was "inexplicable" why someone would want to drive at such "extreme" speeds, let alone why a car would be capable of achieving those speeds.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
“Honoring commitments that have already been made to the entertainment industry is an essential step in achieving that goal.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
McKissick, just five years older than Moore, not only believed in developing new strategies for achieving racial justice; he was an activist in his own right.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
