Attain vs Acquire - What's the difference?
attain | acquire | Synonyms |
To accomplish; to achieve.
To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
* Fuller
To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
* Milton
* Bible, Psalms cxxxix. 6
To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach.
* Bible, Acts xxvii. 12
* Sir Walter Scott
* Cowper
* J. R. Green
To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
(obsolete) To overtake.
To get.
To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own, as, to acquire a title, riches, knowledge, skill, good or bad habits.
* (Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)
* (William Blackstone) (1723-1780)
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), chapter=3/19/2, title=
, passage=Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house?; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something?; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.}}
Acquire is a synonym of attain.
In transitive terms the difference between attain and acquire
is that attain is to reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at while acquire is to gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own, as, to acquire a title, riches, knowledge, skill, good or bad habits.attain
English
Verb
(en verb)- To attain such a high level of proficiency requires hours of practice each day.
- not well attaining his meaning
- Canaan he now attains .
- 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
- Nor nearer might the dogs attain .
- to see your trees attain to the dignity of timber
- Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this.
- (Francis Bacon)
acquire
English
Verb
(acquir)- No virtue is acquired in an instant, but step by step.
- Descent is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate, by right of representation, as his heir at law.
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