try
Forms
- present (v1)
- try
- past (v2)
- tried
- past participle (v3)
- tried
- present participle
- trying
- 3rd person singular
- tries
- Plural
- tries
Definitions
1.To attempt; to endeavour. Followed by infinitive.
- Can you start the car? , I'll try (to).
- I tried to rollerblade, but I couldn’t.
2.To test, to work out.
- I shall try my skills on this.
- You fixin' to try something, fool?
- Oh, you need to try the soup of the day!
3.To experiment, to strive.
- Dad, for God's sake, I'm trying my best!
- You are trying too hard.
4.To lie to in heavy weather under just sufficient sail to head into the wind.
- Try not to be late again tomorrow.
- I try to be positive all the time.
- I'll try my hand at cooking.
1.An attempt.
- I gave unicycling a try but I couldn’t do it.
- When Papillon makes his last impossible try for freedom they embrace with the tendresse of lovers, however manly and platonic.
2.An act of tasting or sampling.
- I gave sushi a try but I didn’t like it.
3.A score in rugby league and rugby union, analogous to a touchdown in American football.
- Today I scored my first try.
- But two penalties and a drop-goal from Jonny Wilkinson, despite a host of other wayward attempts, plus a late try from Chris Ashton were enough to send a misfiring England through.
4.A field goal or extra point
Frequency
Overall
Very common· #121
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Very common
- General reading & writing
- Very common
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Etymology
From Middle English trien (“to separate out, sift, choose, select, evaluate, try a legal case”), from Anglo-Norman trier, triher, triere (“to divide, separate, choose, select, prove, determine, try a case”), Old French trier (“to choose, pick out or separate from others, sift, cull”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Occitan triar (“to choose, sort, scrutinise, peel”), Catalan triar (“to pick, choose, decide”). Suggested to be derived from Late Latin *trītāre (“to crush, grind, trample, wear out”), itself derived from Classical Latin trītus (“rubbed, worn down, pulverised”), the past participle of terō, terere (“to rub, wear down, trample”), though this derivation is incompatible with the Occitan form. Additionally, the shift in meaning from "rub, crush, trample" to "pick out, choose, cull" is difficult to explain. One suggestion is that the semantic shift might have originated from a Latin phrase *granum terere ("to tread the corn (in threshing)"; compare Latin trītūra (“rubbing, chafing, friction" also "threshing”)), which has a parallel in the modern French trier le grain (“to sort the grain”). Alternatively, perhaps derived from Vulgar Latin *trīāre, a metathetic alteration of *tīrāre (“to tear off, pull, draw”), whence also Old French tirer (“to draw, pull, pluck, tug, peck at, extract”), Occitan tirar (“to take, draw, retrieve, remove, extract”).