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Essay   /ɛsˈeɪ/  /ˈɛsˌeɪ/   Listen
noun
Essay  n.  (pl. essays)  
1.
An effort made, or exertion of body or mind, for the performance of anything; a trial; attempt; as, to make an essay to benefit a friend. "The essay at organization."
2.
(Lit.) A composition treating of any particular subject; usually shorter and less methodical than a formal, finished treatise; as, an essay on the life and writings of Homer; an essay on fossils, or on commerce.
3.
An assay. See Assay, n. (Obs.)
Synonyms: Attempt; trial; endeavor; effort; tract; treatise; dissertation; disquisition.


verb
Essay  v. t.  (past & past part. essayed; pres. part. essaying)  
1.
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. "What marvel if I thus essay to sing?" "Essaying nothing she can not perform." "A danger lest the young enthusiast... should essay the impossible."
2.
To test the value and purity of (metals); to assay. See Assay. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Essay" Quotes from Famous Books



... my standish to Miss Cardigan to ask her to take care of it for me; I had no place to keep it. But Miss Cardigan was not satisfied to see the prize; she wanted to hear the essay read; and was altogether so elated that a little undue elation perhaps crept into my own heart. It was not a good ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... present harmony. She was with him, again, among the laurels, a favorite place with them, and Imogen sat on her former ledge of sunny rock and Sir Basil was extended beside her on the moss. She had been reading Emerson to him, and when the essay was finished and she had talked to him a little about the "over-soul,"—dear Basil's recollections of metaphysics were very confused,—she presently said to him, letting her hand slide into his while she spoke:—"Basil, dearest,—I want to ask you ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... compilation of which is said to have occupied its author for more than sixteen years. In conformity with the wish of Ford (who had himself favourably reviewed The Bible in Spain) Borrow undertook to produce a study of the Hand-Book for The Quarterly Review. The following Essay was the result. ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... my warm, my thankful feelings, at the effect produced by one of my trivial lucubrations. I allude to the essay in the Sketch-Book, on the subject of the literary feuds between England and America. I cannot express the heartfelt delight I have experienced, at the unexpected sympathy and approbation with which those ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... true of Scott's poems, which only expressed one-half of his nature, and were almost pure romances. But in the novels the business of life is even better portrayed than its sentiments. Mr. Bagehot, one of the ablest of Scott's critics, has pointed out this admirably in his essay on The Waverley Novels. "Many historical novelists," he says, "especially those who with care and pains have read up the detail, are often evidently in a strait how to pass from their history ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton


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