essay
Americannoun
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essays
plural
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a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.
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anything resembling such a composition.
a picture essay.
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an effort to perform or accomplish something; attempt.
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Philately. a design for a proposed stamp differing in any way from the design of the stamp as issued.
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Obsolete. a tentative effort; trial; assay.
verb (used with object)
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essays,
present (3rd person singular)
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essayed,
past participle, past
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essaying
present participle
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to try; attempt.
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to put to the test; make trial of.
noun
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a short literary composition dealing with a subject analytically or speculatively
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an attempt or endeavour; effort
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a test or trial
verb
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to attempt or endeavour; try
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to test or try out
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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essaysimple
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essayssimple
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have essayedperfect
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has essayedperfect
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am essayingprogressive
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are essayingprogressive
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is essayingprogressive
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have been essayingperfect progressive
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has been essayingperfect progressive
Past
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essayedsimple
-
had essayedperfect
-
was essayingprogressive
-
were essayingprogressive
-
had been essayingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of essay
First recorded in 1475–85; from Middle French essayer, from Late Latin exagium “a weighing,” from exag(ere) (unrecorded) “to examine, test,” literally, “to drive out, thrust out” (from Latin exigere; see exact) + -ium -ium
Explanation
A composition that is usually short and has a literary theme is called an essay. You should probably start writing your essay on "To Kill a Mockingbird" sometime before the bus ride to school the day it is due. As a noun, an essay is also an attempt, especially a tentative initial one. Your essay to make friends at your new school would probably work better if you actually spoke to other students. As a verb, to essay is to make an attempt. If you essay to run for student council, you might lose to the girl who promises more recess, longer lunches, and less homework.
Vocabulary lists containing essay
PARCC: Language of the Test (Grade7)
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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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:
Curlee, who has since resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency after 20 years of service, recently shared her experience in a first-person essay published by The Atlantic magazine.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
It’s a tender, naked and amusing personal essay, grounded in the now while looking both backward and forward.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
A Michigan teacher’s first essay led to three bestselling novels from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
The latest ballyhoo: Tyler Austin Harper’s cover essay in the Atlantic, “Confessions of a Token Black Professor.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Then she yanked the essay out of the student’s hand and clicked down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
She is working on a book of essays about multiculturalism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
The justices have been writing essays about the problem for a decade while the seizures continue.
From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2026
In the other essays, the tone is occasionally personal, at times drifting away from the books themselves.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Wang, 56, who became a delivery rider around 2019, gained traction on social media for his poems and essays.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
All the extra hours studying, the extra time in the simulation rooms, the extra books and essays I’d read on every obscure historical event known to man didn’t matter.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
In the second cast, Christine Shevchenko fell far short of Ms. Teuscher’s finesse, but she essayed the opening “Preghiera” movement with more of its requisite lilt and shimmer than Ms. Teuscher did.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026
That section essayed — at the very least — to disqualify from federal office the Civil War rebels and, prospectively, anyone who tried to do the same thing again.
From Slate ● Sep. 19, 2023
Meanwhile, dos Santos — with an army of around 100,000 troops, many with years of jungle combat experience — essayed a role as a regional power broker, starting with neighboring countries.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2022
Her win was celebrated especially as a triumph for women who don’t readily fit into a social mold, given the wide-ranging and often risky roles Youn has essayed since she began acting in 1966.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2021
Searching for the Man who lives in him was perhaps what he really meant, because certainly no beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Two other Scandinavian greats, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann, couldn’t resist essaying a part that passionately called out to them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025
Here, Sinatra is clearly stretching the limits of what was possible for a popular singer—one can’t imagine any of his predecessors or contemporaries essaying a work as long and complex as this.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025
The actress was a member of the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1972-75, essaying Lady Macbeth in 1972.
From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2020
Like all reflective objects though, the act of essaying has a twoness about it.
From Washington Post ● May 11, 2020
The Germans held it and the French, in essaying the task of wresting it from them, invited American detachments to lend a hand.
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.
