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Attempt vs Commit - What's the difference?

attempt | commit |

As verbs the difference between attempt and commit

is that attempt is to try while commit is .

As a noun attempt

is the action of trying at something.

attempt

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To try.
  • I attempted to sing, but my throat was too hoarse.
    to attempt an escape from prison
  • * Longfellow
  • Something attempted , something done, / Has earned a night's repose.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
  • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • (obsolete) To try to move, by entreaty, by afflictions, or by temptations; to tempt.
  • * Thackeray
  • It made the laughter of an afternoon / That Vivien should attempt the blameless king.
  • (archaic) To try to win, subdue, or overcome.
  • one who attempts the virtue of a woman
  • * Shakespeare
  • Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further: / Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute.
  • (archaic) To attack; to make an effort or attack upon; to try to take by force.
  • to attempt the enemy's camp
  • * Motley
  • without attempting his adversary's life

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Synonyms

    * take a stab at, take a run at

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The action of trying at something.
  • * We made an attempt to cross the stream, but didn't manage.
  • * This poem is much better than the feeble attempt of mine.
  • * It was worth the attempt .
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
  • , author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter , title=The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , volume=100, issue=2, page=87 , magazine= citation , passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea}}
  • An assault or attack, especially an assassination attempt.
  • * 1584' ''No man can charge us of any '''attempt against the realm. (Allen's Defence Of English Catholics, cited after Edinburgh review 1883, p. 378)
  • Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "attempt": first, failed, desperate, last, half-hearted, unsuccessful, serious, successful, feeble, new, honest, vain, sincere, ambitious, earnest, clumsy, direct, hard, brilliant, official, useless, clever, sophisticated, amateurish.

    Synonyms

    * effort * try

    Statistics

    *

    commit

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Verb

    (committ)
  • To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; -- used with to, unto.
  • * Bible, Psalms xxxvii. 5
  • Commit thy way unto the Lord.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave.
  • To put in charge of a jailor; to imprison.
  • * Clarendon
  • These two were committed .
  • To do; to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault.
  • * Bible, Exodus xx. 4
  • Thou shalt not commit adultery.
  • To join a contest; to match; followed by with .
  • To pledge or bind; to compromise, expose, or endanger by some decisive act or preliminary step; for example to commit oneself to a certain action'', ''to commit oneself to doing something''. (Traditionally used only reflexively but now also without ''oneself etc.)http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_speech/v074/74.3shapiro.html
  • * Junius
  • You might have satisfied every duty of political friendship, without committing the honour of your sovereign.
  • * Marshall
  • Any sudden assent to the proposalmight possibly be considered as committing the faith of the United States.
  • (obsolete, Latinism) To confound.
  • * Milton
  • committing short and long [quantities]
  • (obsolete) To commit an offence; especially, to fornicate.
  • *, II.12:
  • the sonne might one day bee found committing with his mother.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Commit not with man's sworn spouse.

    Usage notes

    To , entrust, consign. These words have in common the idea of transferring from one's self to the care and custody of another. Commit'' is the widest term, and may express only the general idea of delivering into the charge of another; as, to commit a lawsuit to the care of an attorney; or it may have the special sense of entrusting with or without limitations, as to a superior power, or to a careful servant, or of consigning, as to writing or paper, to the flames, or to prison. To ''entrust'' denotes the act of committing to the exercise of confidence or trust; as, to entrust a friend with the care of a child, or with a secret. To ''consign is a more formal act, and regards the thing transferred as placed chiefly or wholly out of one's immediate control; as, to consign a pupil to the charge of his instructor; to consign goods to an agent for sale; to consign a work to the press.

    Derived terms

    * commit suicide * commit oneself

    References

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) The act of committing (e.g. a database transaction or source code into a source control repository), making it a permanent change.
  • * 1988 , Klaus R Dittrich, Advances in Object-Oriented Database Systems: 2nd International Workshop
  • To support locking and process synchronization independently of transaction commits , the server provides semaphore objects...
  • * 2009 , Jon Loeliger, Version Control with Git
  • Every Git commit represents a single, atomic changeset with respect to the previous state.