I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a belated attempt
▪
a belated attempt to increase support
a bold attempt
▪
It was a bold attempt to win back public confidence.
a coup attempt
▪
There have been repeated coup attempts against the government.
a desperate attempt
▪
Brian’s parents agreed to the treatment in a desperate attempt to save his life.
a futile attempt/effort
▪
a futile attempt to save the paintings from the flames
▪
My efforts to go back to sleep proved futile.
a record attempt (= an attempt to break a record )
▪
They will make another record attempt next year.
a rescue attempt/effort
▪
One fire fighter was severely burned in the rescue attempt.
a suicide attempt
▪
He was admitted to a psychiatric facility after a suicide attempt.
a vain attempt/bid/effort
▪
People close their windows at night in a vain attempt to shut out the sound of gunfire.
abandoned...attempt
▪
They abandoned their attempt to recapture the castle.
abortive attempt/effort
▪
an abortive attempt to reform local government
an attempted/abortive/failed coup (= one that did not succeed )
▪
There was an attempted coup against Togo’s military dictator.
an escape attempt/bid
▪
She made several unsuccessful escape attempts before finally getting away.
an unsuccessful attempt/bid/effort
▪
We made several unsuccessful attempts to tackle the problem.
assassination attempt (= when someone tries but fails to kill someone else )
▪
He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt .
attempt suicide (= try to kill yourself )
▪
She had attempted suicide twice.
attempt/do/ask etc the impossible
▪
I just want to be able to buy healthy food at a reasonable price. Is that asking the impossible?
attempted murder (= the crime of trying to kill someone )
▪
I am arresting you for attempted murder.
attempted rape
▪
He was convicted of attempted rape .
attempted robbery
▪
He admitted attempted robbery and was given a suspended sentence.
attempted theft
▪
He was charged with attempted theft.
attempt/effort to persuade sb
▪
Leo wouldn’t agree, despite our efforts to persuade him.
attempt/mount a rescue (= try to rescue someone )
▪
The stormy conditions made it impossible to mount a rescue.
brave effort/attempt
▪
the brave efforts of the medical staff to save his life
calculated attempt
▪
a calculated attempt to deceive the American public
clumsy attempt
▪
David made a clumsy attempt to comfort us.
clumsy attempt
▪
a clumsy attempt to catch the ball
deliberate attempt
▪
a deliberate attempt to humiliate her
determined attempt/effort
▪
She was making a determined effort to give up smoking.
earnest attempt/effort etc
failed in...attempt
▪
He failed in his attempt to regain the world title.
frantic effort/attempt
▪
Despite our frantic efforts, we were unable to save the boy’s life.
fruitless attempt/exercise
▪
a fruitless attempt to settle the dispute
▪
So far, their search has been fruitless.
lame attempt
▪
a lame attempt to deflect criticism
puny effort/attempt
▪
a puny attempt at humour
resist an attempt to do sth
▪
The rest of the board resisted his attempts to change the way things were done.
try/attempt to escape
▪
Some prisoners tried to escape, but most were recaptured or shot.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
abortive
▪
In 1909 an abortive attempt was made, by the present owner's grandfather, to produce hydroelectric power.
▪
An abortive attempt was made by Aprista newspapers to prove that the university had misappropriated public funds.
▪
The charges against Enrile arose from the abortive coup attempt of December 1989, the most serious military insurrection Aquino to date.
▪
He soon drifted away from his hometown to Rome, where he made an abortive attempt to complete law school.
brave
▪
A brave attempt , but ruined by the fact that neither of the elements are really up to much.
▪
The success of President Mohammad Khatami's brave attempt to democratize the country hangs in the balance.
▪
A brave attempt , but spoiled by poor execution.
▪
Richard Body has made a brave attempt to shed the mythology and propaganda, and to expose farming objectives to public debate.
▪
It had been a brave attempt and was recognised as such.
conscious
▪
In both examples, a conscious attempt has been made-to segment the market. 11.
▪
It is squarely in the scientific tradition and is a conscious attempt to apply scientific method to international relations.
▪
But any conscious attempt to disregard this proportionality would inflict unnecessary losses and suffering.
deliberate
▪
Therefore it is easy to assume that this must be a deliberate , callous attempt to inflict hurt.
▪
But the difference really shows in the deliberate attempt to abandon traditional forms of school discipline.
▪
There were deliberate attempts to develop elements of both high and popular culture in music, poetry, dance, and games.
▪
Apprised of this, the Friendship crew discounted it as a deliberate attempt to mislead them.
▪
What effect would a deliberate attempt to change this image have?
▪
The enterprise of science consists in the proposal of highly falsifiable hypotheses, followed by deliberate and tenacious attempts to falsify them.
▪
I knew it was a deliberate attempt from the word go to bring the band down.
▪
Planned towns were deliberate attempts to exploit the economic possibilities of a site; and like any other investment could go wrong.
desperate
▪
It's just a desperate attempt to make Sandra seem interesting.
▪
Prosecutors say it was around this time that Kim conceived a fraud scheme in a desperate attempt to save his conglomerate.
▪
Joy made one last desperate attempt and produced the most horrendous squeak ever, like a hare caught by a harvest scythe.
▪
She made a desperate attempt to move.
▪
Flights took place sporadically throughout the month in a desperate attempt to build up stockpiles of supplies before the winter.
▪
He made two desperate attempts to recoup by staging the kind of garish spectacle that had once lured customers to the Falls.
▪
In a last desperate attempt to free himself of investigation, Nixon dismissed the special prosecutor Cox in October 1973.
▪
A desperate attempt to make some capital out of the black passed pawn on b2.
early
▪
Edmund's early attempts at opposition seem to have come to nothing.
▪
Many early attempts at electronic markets have failed because these basic conditions were not met.
▪
In 1901 Hobhouse made an early attempt at accounting for the evolution of mental structure.
▪
For example, early attempts to organize financial community were not successful.
▪
An earlier attempt had been withdrawn immediately after the 19 October 1987 Wall Street crash.
▪
Adding fuel to the fire, some early attempts at lower-fat offerings were truly disappointing.
▪
An earlier attempt at a Picture Prices Current had already folded some years before.
futile
▪
Policy strategies which attack the social and economic determinants of ill-health are dismissed as futile attempts at social engineering.
▪
A number of women were quite bitter about their futile attempts to get clergy to help.
▪
These are the remains of unfortunate wretches driven to kill themselves in a futile attempt to escape the torments of the Castle.
▪
They showed no qualms in spending £3 billion in a futile attempt to prop up the Pound.
serious
▪
John had made quite a serious attempt to stop him joining the mining expedition, and then had dropped it.
▪
Yet most managers in most companies make no serious attempt to do that.
▪
It was too early in the trip for a serious attempt and all of us were decidedly under the weather.
▪
This had been consolidated in power by the end of the fourteenth century, after the one serious attempt to overthrow it.
▪
The 1970s saw the beginning of serious attempts to develop remedial services in local authorities.
▪
When those techniques have been mastered, the student is ready to make his first serious destruction attempt .
▪
The 1970s saw the beginning of serious and substantial attempts to understand and improve the financial reporting practices of public sector organizations.
▪
When comprehensive schools became the norm there was still no serious attempt to rethink the curriculum or the values incorporated within it.
unsuccessful
▪
On March 4, however, 30 soldiers made an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government.
▪
Rossignol and Phillis theorize that this pattern of caffeine use may reflect an unsuccessful attempt by the women to self-medicate with caffeine.
▪
If it is, you have probably tried to create the new database twice, after an unsuccessful first attempt .
▪
Six days later, after unsuccessful attempts to re-establish contact, the company declared it permanently out of service.
▪
At an earlier hearing the court heard that the police had made unsuccessful attempts to serve the complaint.
▪
In 1988 he made an unsuccessful attempt to challenge Mr Hattersley for the deputy leadership.
vain
▪
Fifi was back at the bars and stretching out her hand in a vain attempt to reach the steel tray.
▪
Atmel is spending $ 400 million this year in a vain attempt to meet demand.
▪
Curling his toes in a vain attempt to frustrate the inhospitable lino, Mungo watched, fascinated.
▪
Something walking across her grave ... or the forces in heaven laughing at her vain attempts to re-write her future?
▪
People close their windows at night in a vain attempt to shut out the sound of sirens and gunfire.
▪
Once, I dived full-length across the court in a vain attempt to retrieve the ball.
▪
In a vain attempt to maintain her independence, she spent Monday and Tuesday nights at home - alone.
▪
The protesters flung handfuls of earth into the trenches in a vain attempt to lift the siege of the West Bank town.
■ NOUN
assassination
▪
It was clear he had had nothing to do with the assassination attempt .
▪
There was shouting, the kind of confused commotion that usually attends an assassination attempt .
▪
The White Lions protected him from many assassination attempts and his personal retinue of Sapherian wizards countered all death-spells.
▪
So far, no material evidence has linked Pyongyang to the assassination attempt .
▪
The assassination attempt at Rastenburg last year ... it caused him grave damage.
▪
Patricio Martnez survived the assassination attempt .
▪
He addressed a crowd of his civilian supporters at Baabda on Oct. 12, when he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt .
▪
The assassination attempt on his life had been thwarted and his master plan on the Continent was going exactly to plan.
suicide
▪
There are several measures which might reduce the chances of a suicide attempt in an individual at risk.
▪
Shea said the sparse cell where Salvi is housed is designed to frustrate suicide attempts .
▪
The father continued the suicide attempt but he was rescued by police.
▪
Depression has been a lifelong struggle for me, and 17 years ago I was hospitalized after a suicide attempt .
▪
The court heard the girl has made several suicide attempts and is still receiving treatment.
▪
He sloshed around in a cold river in a halfhearted suicide attempt .
▪
Mr Jamshidi has recently left hospital after slashing his wrists in his own suicide attempt .
▪
He was taken to hospital on July 29 with bullet wounds to the chest, apparently the result of a suicide attempt .
■ VERB
abandon
▪
Loretta decided she would have to abandon her attempt to see Veronica for the rest of the day.
▪
Helen watched my grandmother with a peculiar horror, for my grandmother had abandoned all attempts to make herself presentable.
▪
Charles realized that he must abandon the attempt to re-assert the Forest rights enjoyed by his medieval predecessors.
▪
It abandons the attempt to detect a class struggle between exploiters and exploited within advanced capitalism.
▪
Isabel abandoned the attempt and fought to regain her control instead.
▪
In reality it was simply a recognition that the government had abandoned any serious attempt to keep monetary growth within targets.
fail
▪
You have failed in your attempt to convince me of the coincidence between the bourgeois and the human.
▪
After contact they zoom away, Doppler-shifting into the horizon, which is littered with failed attempts .
▪
April 23-24 Baker fails in his attempt to persuade Assad to moderate his position during talks in Damascus.
▪
A failed attempt to relax at bedtime causes more anxiety and can condition you to associate relaxation techniques with insomnia.
▪
His failed attempts in seducing the young woman angered him to the point of incarcerating her.
▪
One prime minister was assassinated by the Brothers; they failed in an attempt on Nasser himself.
▪
The Democratic National Committee, in its failed attempt to match Republican fund raising, went a little bananas.
make
▪
Albert panicked, and put the receiver down, which made the next attempt more difficult.
▪
Congress did make feeble attempts to regain its honor.
▪
The assassin had made two attempts upon her life.
▪
With remarkable poise, he quickly put the two broken pieces in one hand and made an attempt to paddle canoe-style.
▪
He's made 2 escape attempts and had a reputation for persistent violence.
▪
She makes another attempt to take me by the hand and pull me forward.
▪
He had made 2 previous attempts to commit suicide.
▪
He'd made no attempt to hold back as he knew there was more to come.
prevent
▪
Citizens died on the church steps in their attempt to prevent altar-pieces being taken away.
▪
But once again, our attempt to prevent bad management made good management impossible.
▪
Despite Brett's attempt to prevent it, the firebombs had been detonated.
▪
The rule is an attempt to prevent harm to pets or rare species that may wander into the traps.
▪
Uefa is to rule on Leeds's decision to ban visiting supporters in an attempt to prevent further violence.
▪
In an attempt to prevent his mouth from falling open, a woollen strap had been passed beneath his chin.
▪
A judge said it is the duty of the courts to support any attempts being made to prevent crimes of that nature.
▪
It might also start by attempts to prevent the transportation of strikebreakers or goods, and a clash would follow police intervention.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a last-ditch attempt/effort etc
▪
Despite his bulk, he jumped several fences in a last-ditch attempt to escape.
▪
Horrified by his latest intentions, they were perhaps genuinely considering a last-ditch attempt to save him from himself.
▪
Last night, Mr Jones said he was involved in a last-ditch effort to save the unit.
▪
Munich had inspired a last-ditch attempt to bring down Chamberlain and save the peace.
▪
Not as a second-rate effort or a last-ditch effort.
▪
So finally, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the exercise as a whole, the following workshop activity was developed.
▪
The Republican victories came despite a last-ditch effort by the president to help Democratic candidates.
conscious effort/decision/attempt etc
▪
Accepting our human limitations in these high-pressure times, though, takes conscious effort.
▪
And each time the child has to make a new conscious effort like that, there is an opportunity to lose concentration.
▪
I made a conscious decision to do more than persevere in the remaining years I have with my voice.
▪
In both examples, a conscious attempt has been made-to segment the market. 11.
▪
It's a conscious decision and I think it's important that men understand a woman who is offering an alternative lifestyle.
▪
Just lately I have made a conscious effort to really look at the book.
▪
Other subjects - like calculus or computing - can not be learned without some conscious effort.
▪
What varies, and varies dramatically, is the conscious effort with which they are identified and undertaken.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
a field-goal attempt
▪
After four attempts, Mike finally passed his driving test.
▪
All my attempts to get the machine working failed miserably.
▪
It was a deliberate attempt to mislead the voters.
▪
The climbers will make another attempt to reach the summit today.
▪
The government has announced that it will fund an extra 10,000 doctors in an attempt to reduce waiting times for operations.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
Dissent has occurred at times among university students in attempts to radicalise dominant ideas.
▪
During a meeting at the Diamond police restrained attempts by loyalist and Catholic youths to break through their fines.
▪
He had been told also, in whispered confidence, that two attempts against the target had failed.
▪
It began an attempt to do this in several policy documents.
▪
The attempt at adding-machine accuracy shows how serious the priests were about numbering the new saints bound for heaven.
▪
They ploughed cash into marketing attempts and even won a prize from the local council.
▪
This was an incredible result bearing in mind the general statistics of 98 percent failure rates reported for most dieting attempts.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
coup
▪
In 1972 his own principle aide, General Oufkir, who ruled the country in the king's name attempted a coup .
▪
Since this month's mutiny, Guei has arrested 35 officers, including four colonels, for attempting a coup .
▪
Ivory Coast's government accused supporters of former prime minister Alassane Outtara of attempting a military coup .
▪
In March 1988, a group of junior officers attempted a coup .
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
A rescue was attempted by Coast Guards, but it was not successful.
▪
Any prisoner who attempts to escape will be shot.
▪
No one has attempted this experiment before.
▪
Someone had attempted to open the car door.
▪
They are attempting to become the first to climb Everest without oxygen tanks.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
At the time, ScotRail was also attempting to get through a similar application for the junction at Westerton, outside Glasgow.
▪
Brown believes the Greys are attempting to speed human evolution and enhance our spirituality by creating humans with some Grey genes.
▪
Do not attempt any diet without consulting your family doctor or specialist.
▪
For instance, the company is attempting to bring Internet access to a mass consumer audience through an agreement with Continental Cablevision.
▪
Some analysts are attempting to discipline the confused setting, primarily by studying what has happened in similar circumstances.
▪
These questions are especially germane in comparative research, where the analyst attempts to specify how the structure-function patterns vary between states.
▪
Vying for your custom, each site attempts to provide something a little different.