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Attention vs Attain - What's the difference?

attention | attain |

As a noun attention

is mental focus.

As an interjection attention

is {{cx|military|lang=en}} Used as a command to bring soldiers to the attention position.

As a verb attain is

to accomplish; to achieve.

attention

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (label) Mental focus.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.}}
  • * , chapter=3
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, volume=100, issue=2, page=87, magazine=(American Scientist)
  • , title= The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , 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.}}
  • (label) An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
  • * 1818 , (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), (Frankenstein); or, the Modern Prometheus , ch. 3,
  • She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper.
  • * 1910 , (Stephen Leacock), " ,
  • For some time past I have been the recipient of very marked attentions from a young lady.
  • A state of alertness in the standing position.
  • Derived terms

    () * at attention * attention deficit disorder * attention-grabbing * attention line * attention span * attention whore * attentional * centre of attention/center of attention * draw attention * flow of attention * pay attention * stand to attention

    Interjection

    (en interjection)
  • .
  • Statistics

    *

    attain

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To accomplish; to achieve.
  • To attain such a high level of proficiency requires hours of practice each day.
  • To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
  • * Fuller
  • not well attaining his meaning
  • To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
  • * Milton
  • Canaan he now attains .
  • * Bible, Psalms cxxxix. 6
  • Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it.
  • To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach.
  • * Bible, Acts xxvii. 12
  • if by any means they might attain to Phenice
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • Nor nearer might the dogs attain .
  • * Cowper
  • to see your trees attain to the dignity of timber
  • * J. R. Green
  • Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this.
  • To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
  • (obsolete) To overtake.
  • (Francis Bacon)