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to bring to a successful end; carry through; accomplish:
the police crackdown on speeders achieved its purpose.
to get or attain by effort; gain; obtain:
to achieve victory.
to bring about an intended result; accomplish some purpose or effect.
contemporary examples

we must remember that achieving change is a long-term struggle.
funds and a unified front rabbi gerald c. skolnik october 23, 2012

are tens of thousands of additional troops in afghanistan the best means of achieving that end?
what war costs the right conor friedersdorf september 27, 2009

deng quickly decked the -ssailant, achieving her own bit of youtube immortality.
what would the new york post say about rupert murdoch’s divorce? david freedlander june 12, 2013

needless to say, the yesha council is well on the way to achieving this step.
settlers’ 9-step plan to kill the two-state solution joel braunold march 20, 2013

i was drawn to the cl-ss for different reasons—chiefly, the pipe dream of achieving a tighter and tauter backside.
how taryn toomey’s ‘the cl-ss’ became new york’s latest fitness craze lizzie crocker january 8, 2015

historical examples

from all this striving and achieving, and from all the satisfying rewards which come with success, woman is debarred.
daybreak: a romance of an old world james cowan

my answer is you may be achieving self-hypnosis and not know it!
a practical guide to self-hypnosis melvin powers

all about yourself, the wonderful things that you have been living and achieving.
katrine elinor macartney lane

his method of achieving the ideal seems to me too full of red tape.
mother earth, vol. 1 no. 1, march 1906 various

for them, non-resistance becomes an end in itself, rather than a means for achieving other purposes.
introduction to non-violence theodore paullin

verb (transitive)
to bring to a successful conclusion; accomplish; attain
to gain as by hard work or effort: to achieve success
v.

early 14c., from old french achever (12c.) “to finish, accomplish, complete,” from phrase à chef (venir) “at an end, finished,” or vulgar latin -accapare, from late latin ad caput (venire); both the french and late latin phrases meaning literally “to come to a head,” from stem of latin caput “head” (see capitulum).

the lat. caput, towards the end of the empire, and in merov[ingian] times, took the sense of an end, whence the phrase ad caput venire, in the sense of to come to an end …. venire ad caput naturally produced the fr. phrase venir à chef = venir à bout. … from this chief, o.fr. form of chef (q.v.) in sense of term, end, comes the fr. compd. achever = venir à chef, to end, finish. [auguste brachet, “an etymological dictionary of the french language,” transl. g.w. kitchin, oxford, 1878]

related: achieved; achieving.