Verb

(en verb)

To keep in possession or use.

* Milton

Be obedient, and retain / Unalterably firm his love entire.

* 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into decay in his arms.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

To keep in one's pay or service.

* Addison

A Benedictine convent has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence.

To employ by paying a retainer.

To hold secure.

(obsolete) To restrain; to prevent.

(obsolete) To belong; to pertain.

* Boyle

A somewhat languid relish, retaining to bitterness.

Verb

(achiev)

To succeed in something, now especially in academic performance.

To carry out successfully; to accomplish.

* I. Taylor

Supposing faculties and powers to be the same, far more may be achieved in any line by the aid of a capital, invigorating motive than without it.

(obsolete) To conclude, finish, especially successfully.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.1:

Full many Countreyes they did overronne, / From the uprising to the setting Sunne, / And many hard adventures did atchieve [...].

To obtain, or gain (a desired result, objective etc.), as the result of exertion; to succeed in gaining; to win.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.}}

* {{quote-news, year=2013, date=January 22, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC

, title= Aston Villa 2-1 Bradford (3-4) , passage=Bradford may have lost on the night but they stubbornly protected a 3-1 first-leg advantage to emulate a feat last achieved by Rochdale in 1962.}}

* (William Shakespeare), (Twelfth Night), II-v

Some are born great, some achieve greatness.

*

Thou hast achieved our liberty.

(obsolete) To conclude, to turn out.

* Prior

Show all the spoils by valiant kings achieved .

* (William Shakespeare), (Othello), II-i

He hath achieved a maid / That paragons description.