essay
[noun es-ey for 1, 2; es-ey, e-sey for 3–5; verb e-sey]
- a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.
- anything resembling such a composition: a picture essay.
- an effort to perform or accomplish something; attempt.
- Philately. a design for a proposed stamp differing in any way from the design of the stamp as issued.
- Obsolete. a tentative effort; trial; assay.
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- to try; attempt.
- to put to the test; make trial of.
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Origin of essay
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for essay
Contemporary Examples
The current attack on the Jews,” he wrote in a 1937 essay, “targets not just this people of 15 million but mankind as such.
Someone recently sent me an old Joan Didion essay on self-respect that appeared in Vogue.
In “Barry,” an essay in Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham describes being sexually assaulted.
Nolte could not locate a “Barry” that fit the details listed in Dunham's essay.
Her own muddled feelings of confusion, shame, and fear are what make the essay great and what make the essay her story.
Historical Examples
At last in desperation you embody it in a poem, an essay, a story.
Ballads of a BohemianRobert W. Service
As might be expected in a first essay, the drawing is now over-minute, now too loose.
The Man ShakespeareFrank Harris
This essay is quite as significant for what it has not said as for what it has said.
Understanding the ScripturesFrancis McConnell
And if they essay to do so, why should not my word be at least as weighty as theirs?
In the ValleyHarold Frederic
On his return, he wrote an essay on the subject, which was published in 1754.
The Works of Whittier, Volume VII (of VII)John Greenleaf Whittier
essay
- a short literary composition dealing with a subject analytically or speculatively
- an attempt or endeavour; effort
- a test or trial
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- to attempt or endeavour; try
- to test or try out
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Word Origin
C15: from Old French essaier to attempt, from essai an attempt, from Late Latin exagium a weighing, from Latin agere to do, compel, influenced by exigere to investigate
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for essay
n.
1590s, "short non-fiction literary composition" (first attested in writings of Francis Bacon, probably in imitation of Montaigne), from Middle French essai "trial, attempt, essay," from Late Latin exagium "a weighing, weight," from Latin exigere "test," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + agere (see act) apparently meaning here "to weigh." The suggestion is of unpolished writing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
essay
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.