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Seek vs Endeavor - What's the difference?

seek | endeavor |

As verbs the difference between seek and endeavor

is that seek is to try to find, to look for, to search while endeavor is to exert oneself.

As a noun endeavor is

a sincere attempt; a determined or assiduous effort towards a specific goal.

seek

English

Verb

  • (lb) To try to find, to look for, to search.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
    • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.
  • (label) To inquire for; to ask for; to solicit; to beseech.
  • :
  • *Bible, (w) xi. 16
  • *:Others, tempting him, sought of him a sign.
  • *1960 , (Lobsang Rampa), :
  • *:“My, my! It is indeed a long way yet, look you!” said the pleasant woman of whom I sought directions.
  • (lb) To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.
  • :
  • *1880 , , :
  • *:But persecution sought the lives of men of this character.
  • *1886 , Constantine Popoff, translation of (Leo Tolstoy)'s :
  • *:I can no longer seek fame or glory, nor can I help trying to get rid of my riches, which separate me from my fellow-creatures.
  • *
  • *:Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
  • To go, move, travel (in a given direction).
  • :
  • *, Bk.V:
  • *:Ryght so he sought towarde Sandewyche where he founde before hym many galyard knyghtes
  • (lb) To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.
  • *:
  • *:Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.
  • *1726 (tr.), (Alexander Pope), ''(Homer)'s (Odyssey), Book II, line 33
  • *:Since great Ulysses sought the Phrygian plains

    • Quotations

    Synonyms

    * look for * search

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Related terms

    * hide and seek * seeker

    Anagrams

    * English irregular verbs

    endeavor

    English

    (wikipedia endeavor)

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (UK)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A sincere attempt; a determined or assiduous effort towards a specific goal.
  • * 1640 , , part II, chapter 28:
    • And these three: 1. the law over them that have sovereign power; 2. their duty; 3. their profit: are one and the same thing contained in this sentence, Salus populi suprema lex ; by which must be understood, not the mere preservation of their lives, but generally their benefit and good. So that this is the general law for sovereigns: that they procure, to the uttermost of their endeavour , the good of the people.
  • * 1873 , , volume 2, page 184:
    • As we shall find it necessary, in our endeavours to bring electrical phenomena within the province of dynamics, to have our dynamical ideas in a state fit for direct application to physical questions we shall devote this chapter to an exposition of these dynamical ideas from a physical point of view.
  • Enterprise; assiduous or persistent activity.
  • * 1748 , David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), § 9:
    • The like has been the endeavour of critics, logicians, and even politicians .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To exert oneself.
  • * Alexander Pope:
    • And such were praised who but endeavoured well.
  • To attempt through application of effort (to do something); to try strenuously.
  • * 1748 , David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), § 2:
    • The other species of philosophers consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than an active being, and endeavour to form his understanding more than cultivate his manners.
  • (obsolete) To attempt (something).
  • * Ld. Chatham:
    • It is our duty to endeavour the recovery of these beneficial subjects.
  • * 1669 May 18, Sir Isaac Newton, Letter (to Francis Aston):
    • If you be affronted, it is better, in a foreign country, to pass it by in silence, and with a jest, though with some dishonour, than to endeavour revenge; for, in the first case, your credit's ne'er the worse when you return into England, or come into other company that have not heard of the quarrel.
  • To work with purpose.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
    • , author=John T. Jost , title=Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)? , volume=100, issue=2, page=162 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.}}

    Synonyms

    * strive