attain

1. (transitive) To gain (an object or desired result).Examples: "To attain such a high level of proficiency requires hours of practice each day."; "Lord Ross. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord. / Lord Willoughby. And far surmounts our labour to attain it."; "[…] he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends."Synonyms: accomplish, achieve, gettransitive

2. (transitive) To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at (a place, time, state, etc.).Examples: "[…] my bones would rest, / That have but labour’d to attain this hour."; "Canaan he now attains,"; "It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not attain their full growth and strength till thirty; but that women arrive at maturity by twenty."transitive

3. (intransitive) To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.Examples: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it."; "if by any means they might attain to Phenice"; "1782, William Cowper, letter to Joseph Hill dated 11 November, 1782, in Private Correspondence of William Cowper, London: Henry Colburn, 1824, Volume 1, p. 222, You may not, perhaps, live to see your trees attain to the dignity of timber—I, nevertheless, approve of your planting, and the disinterested spirit that prompts you to it."Synonyms: get, reachintransitive

4. (transitive, obsolete) To get at the knowledge of.Examples: "[…] Master Camden, sometimes acknowledgeth, sometimes denieth him for an English Earle. Not that I accuse him as inconstant to himself, but suspect my self not well attaining his meaning therein."Synonyms: ascertainobsoletetransitive

5. (transitive, obsolete) To reach in excellence or degree.Examples: "Yet notwithstanding as Those that first bring Honour into their Family, are commonly more worthy, then most that succeed: So the first President (if it be good) is seldome attained by Imitation."Synonyms: equalobsoletetransitive

6. (transitive, obsolete) To reach a person after being behind them.Examples: "The Earle finding […] the enemie retired, pursued with all celeritie into Scotland; hoping to haue ouer-taken the Scottish King, and to haue giuen him Battaile; But not attaining him in time, sate downe before the Castle of Aton […] which in a small time hee tooke."Synonyms: catch up with, overtakeobsoletetransitive