essay

plural essays

1. mediaA written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject.

   In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”

   2013 January 28, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 09 Feb 2017, page 64

2. obsoleteA test, experiment; an assay.
3. archaicAn attempt.

   This was Lee's first essay in the kind of offensive-defensive strategy that was to become his hallmark.

   1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 455

   1 more example

   My first essay at getting employment was fruitless; but after no small number of mortifying rebuffs from various parties to whom I applied for assistance, I was at last rewarded by a comparative success.

   1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 16

4. businessA proposed design for a postage stamp or a banknote.

present singular third person essays · participle present essaying · participle past essayed · past essayed

1. datedtransitiveTo attempt or try.

   Shall we essay a walk on the promenade?

   4 more examples

   He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open.

   1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter II, in The House Behind the Cedars

   The train took the slow to branch spur at the north end at a not much slower speed, then essayed the short sharply curved climb with a terrific roar, smoke rising straight from the chimney to a height of some 60 ft., the long train twisting and curling behind.

   1950 April, R. A. H. Weight, “They Passed by My Window”, in Railway Magazine, page 260

   They, at least, had talked about it. And however full of death and darkness their accounts had been, they'd at least essayed a certain personal honesty.

   1986, Samuel R. Delany, Joseph Beam, “The Possibility of Possibilities”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 197

   There was the counter, there was the bulletin board, above her the dull sound of music being played over headphones. Something jaunty. She liked the beat. Then the sound of a chair being pushed back, and someone humming as they walked away from her, and she darted up to plunge the bayonet into their kidneys from behind. A followup stroke through the back of the neck, and the second soldier was down. She didn't even stop to see if it was a man or a woman, young or old. There were further hurdles to essay before she reached her destination.

   2023 October 12, HarryBlank, “Fire in the Hole”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 22 May 2024

2. intransitiveTo move forth, as into battle.