Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author.
- n. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay.
- n. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students' capabilities.
- n. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.
- v. To make an attempt at; try.
- v. To subject to a test.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A trial, attempt, or endeavor; an effort made; exertion of body or mind to perform or accomplish anything: as, an essay toward reform; an essay of strength.
- n. An experimental trial; a test.
- n. An assay or test of the qualities of a metal. See assay, n.
- n. In lit., a discursive composition concerned with a particular subject, usually shorter and less methodical and finished than a treatise; a short disquisition: as, an essay on the life and writings of Homer; an essay on fossils; an essay on commerce.
- n. Synonyms Struggle.
- n. Treatise, dissertation, disquisition, paper, tract, tractate. See definition of treatise.
- To make trial of; attempt; exert one's power or faculties upon; put to the test: as, to essay a difficult feat; to essay the courage of a braggart.
- To try and test the value and purity of, as metals. Now written assay (which see).
- Synonyms Undertake, Endeavor, etc. See attempt.
Wiktionary
- n. A written composition of moderate length exploring a particular issue or subject.
- n. obsolete A test, experiment; an assay.
- n. An attempt.
- v. dated, transitive To try.
- v. intransitive To move forth, as into battle.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An effort made, or exertion of body or mind, for the performance of anything; a trial; attempt.
- n. (Lit.) A composition treating of any particular subject; -- usually shorter and less methodical than a formal, finished treatise
- n. obsolete An assay. See Assay, n.
- v. To exert one's power or faculties upon; to make an effort to perform; to attempt; to endeavor; to make experiment or trial of; to try.
- v. obsolete To test the value and purity of (metals); to assay. See Assay.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an analytic or interpretive literary composition
- n. a tentative attempt
- v. put to the test, as for its quality, or give experimental use to
- v. make an effort or attempt
Etymologies
- From Middle French essai. (Wiktionary)
- French essai, trial, attempt, from Old French, from essayer, to attempt, from Vulgar Latin *exagiāre, to weigh out, from Late Latin exagium, a weighing : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin agere, to drive; see ag- in Indo-European roots. V., from Middle English assaien, from Old French assaer, assaier, variant of essayer. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At its core were two pieces, the title essay and another, "The Eye Is a Part of the Mind," that offered the most sweeping argument against Greenbergian formalism.”
“In his title essay in the recent book, Race, Incarceration, and American Values, Professor Loury sounds the alarm on some of the same concerns the Children's Defense Fund has been raising when we talk about the pipeline to prison crisis.”
Marian Wright Edelman: A Look at Race, Incarceration, and American Values
“Emerson recognized this connection between nature and a certain elevation of mind, and he explains it in the title essay from "Nature":”
John Wihbey: After Copenhagen Chaos, A Bit of Emerson for the Soul
“The title essay is written as a legal brief concerning the lawsuit of Wile E.”
“As it happens, the title essay of the book is Mr. Rybczynski's attempt to fill out with fact the "fairy tales" he heard time and again about his parents 'fathers, one a prosperous banker and patriarch in interwar Warsaw, the other a philosopher and physicist in southeastern Poland who, in time, would withdraw from active life because of his troubled involvement with a married woman.”
“And I completely agree with the title essay - six-year-olds definitely shouldn't be dressed as sexily as they are these days.”
“And the title essay picks up this theme: "Let the dedicated activist never overshadow the dedicated servant of literature — the matchless storyteller.”
“The title essay, on the other hand, is still up, and is also good, if lobsters are indeed something you feel like considering.”
“The Peculiarities of the English" runs to fifty-seven printed pages, while in The Poverty of Theory the title essay alone is 206 pages long: it would have been twice as effective at one quarter the length.”
“In the title essay of the same volume where Thompson's "open letter" to Kolakowski is most available (The Poverty of Theory), Thompson demolishes the system-mongering of then-fashionable Louis Althusser.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘essay’.
-
Sweet tooth fairy dominoes
As originally suggested on sweet tooth fairy domino:
Each person adds one word trying to create a single, potentially infinite sweet tooth fairy (please look it up if you are not familiar wit...banana, boat, house, arrest, warrant, peace, sign, post, box, clever, Hans, device and 119 more...
-
Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
-
Tati's list
comfortable
comfortable, avocado, avoid, beautiful, beer, bear, brief, breath, bug, bias, burn, case and 97 more...
-
GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
-
EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
-
Reading Materials
Names of printed materials meant to be read - for worship, pleasure, information, recitation; out of curiosity, or, in the case of adverts, to get our attention and sway our spending choices.
lectionary, epistolary, reading-book, novel, Bildungsroman, short story, billboard, advertisement, Sunday comics, obituaries, book of hours, primer and 84 more...
-
Magoosh GRE
its a list of words borrowed from Magoosh GRE blog ,an indispensable resource for GRE test takers.
inimitable, exiguity, myriad, cornucopia, surfeit, glut, deluge, opaque, pellucid, grandiloquent, turgid, gadfly and 106 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
-
A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
-
SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL E
ebb, ebullition, eccentric, ecclesiastical, echelon, éclat, eclectic, eclogue, ecstasy, ecumenical, edification, edify and 143 more...
-
my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
-
Philately
Definitions mainly taken from this glossary.
aerogramme, aerophilately, black jack, cachet, cancellation, cinderella, albino, album weed, ambulante, aniline ink, authentication mark, back-of-book and 104 more...
-
Sat Vocabulary List
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 2155 more...
-
b, e, d, g, p and t
decidedly, drench, defeat, delirium, deviant, distance, dimension, dust, dope, dissolve, dissipate, distortion and 63 more...
-
Abbreviate
Is there a name for this type of word?
expediency, obediency, eminency, enemy, arrestee, escapee, ogee, beady, essay, effigy, elegy, tennessee and 59 more...
-
Daily English Vocabulary
upbeat, script, tip, review, quiz, soap, skill, record, cloud, journey, improve, cartoon and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for essay.
oroboros Sounds like the letters S A. Oct 28, 2009
reesetee In stamp collecting, this term refers to the artwork of a proposed design for a postage stamp. Some essays are rendered photographically; others are drawn or painted. One design is chosen out of many submissions to become the essay for the accepted design. Aug 24, 2008