effort 
ef·fort (ef′ərt)
noun
- the using of energy to get something done; exertion of strength or mental power
- a try, esp. a hard try; attempt; endeavor
- a product or result of working or trying; achievement
Etymology: Fr < OFr esforz < esforcier, to make an effort < VL *exfortiare < ex-, intens. + *fortiare: see force
effort
n.
The act of striving
exertion, endeavor, industry, labor, pains, trouble, force, toil, work, application, energy, travail, struggle, striving, attempting, stress, pull, stretch, push, strain, tension, tug, sweat, sweat of one's brow, toil and trouble, elbow grease*. Antonyms
ease, carelessness*, sloth. * An instance of effort, sense 1
attempt, try, bid, endeavor, enterprise, undertaking, struggle, battle, trial, spurt, essay, venture, aim, purpose, resolution, exercise, discipline, drill, training, crack*, stab*, shot*, go*, whirl*, the old college try*.
effort implies a conscious attempt to achieve a particular end make some effort to be friendly; exertion implies an energetic, vigorous use of power, strength, etc., often without reference to any particular end she feels faint after any exertion; endeavor suggests an earnest, sustained attempt to accomplish a particular, usually meritorious, end a life spent in the endeavor to do good; ?pains suggests a laborious, diligent attempt to take pains with one's work
Preposition: towards
- disarmament: Asserts that efforts toward disarmament must be taken both regionally and globally and welcomes initiatives already taken.
Converse of object
- make: We have made every effort to retain many of the original features.
- coordinate: The Demining 2010 Initiative, through US leadership, will seek to coordinate these efforts.
- expend: Similarly where adjustments in the effort expended on academic work are made there are also implications for what happens at the operational level.
- require: In general, new activities require voluntary effort to master them.
- put: There was an enormous effort put in to raise this money.
- undermine: These attempts invariably weaken the Labor left and undermine efforts to unite the left around a common alternative economic and political strategy.
Adjective modifier
- concerted: It will take a concerted effort to undo the damage done in the last eight years.
- considerable: Considerable communal efforts would have been required for their construction.
- collaborative: Since 1986, she's been staging co-productions collaborative efforts made with the input and influence of other cities, mainly European.
- reasonable: It is expected that students and staff will make reasonable efforts to resolve matters at the outset.
- strenuous: Strenuous efforts were made over the four months of the project to identify all the final reports of the relevant funded research.
- conscious: Basically, any conscious effort to exercise your brain can potentially create new brain cell connections.
Preposition: on
- behalf: Public sector staff welcome such recognition of their efforts on behalf of customers.
Noun used with modifier
- fundraising: Auction donations are an everyday way to raise money, complementing your current fundraising efforts.
- relief: The YMCA Movement is also coming together in this relief effort.
- war: How did horse chestnuts help the war effort during the First World War?
- reconstruction: Health, education, and psychosocial support also need to be central to any national reconstruction efforts.
- rescue: Grampian Police said the rescue effort was helped by favorable conditions.
- solo: Goal of the Week is awarded to Arsenal's Sylvain Wiltord for his stunning solo effort against Birmingham.
A constant effort to keep a party together, without sacrificing either principle or the essentials of basic strategy, is the very stuff of political leadership. Macmillan was canonized for it.
Matilda told such Dreadful Lies, It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes; Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth, Had kept a Strict Regard forTruth, Attempted to Believe Matilda: The effort very nearly killed her.
I have never been able to decide whether, in mountain exploration, it is the prospect of tackling an unsolved problem, or the performance of the task itself, or the retrospective enjoyment of successful effort, which affords the greatest amount of pleasure.
Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalite¤ ; le bien est toujours le produit d'un art. Evil is done without effort, naturally, it's destiny; good is always a product of art.
I remember my youth and the feeling that it will never come back any moreöthe feeling that I could last for ever, outlast thesea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effortöto death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expiresöand expires, too soon, too soonöbefore life itself.
A decision of the courts decided that the game of golf may be played on a Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.
Of these two literatures [French and German], as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has beena critical effort; the endeavours, in all branches of knowledgeötheology, philosophy, history, art, scienceötoseethe object as initself it really is.
What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect. Like with Picasso's Bull's Headöa bike seat and handlebars.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort or the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
The only effort worth making is the one it takes to learn the geography of one's own nature.
Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amount of effort.
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to thinkclearly.
For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert people. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice.
I have got the North Pole out of my system after twenty- three years of effort, hard work, disappointments, hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks The work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes by the civilized nations of the world, and it has been accomplished in a way that is thoroughly American. I am content.
Browse dictionary entries near effort
- ‹ efflux
- ‹ effluvium
- ‹ effluent
- ‹ effluence
- ‹ efflorescence
- ‹ effloresce
- ‹ effigy
- ‹ -efficient
- ‹ efficient portfolio
- ‹ efficient market
- effortless ›
- effrontery ›
- effulgence ›
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