accomplishment

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

accomplishment (countable and uncountable, plural accomplishments)

  1. The act of accomplishing; completion; fulfilment.
    the accomplishment of an enterprise, of a prophecy, etc
  2. That which completes, perfects, or equips thoroughly; acquirement; attainment; that which constitutes excellence of mind, or elegance of manners, acquired by education or training.
    • 1763, Charles Churchill, The Ghost, Book III:
      I’ll make a proof how I advance in / My new accomplishment of dancing.
    • 1782, William Cowper, The Progress of Error:
      Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, / And wisdom falls before exterior grace ;
  3. Something accomplished; an achievement.
    Increasing sales by 20% in the last quarter was seen as a major accomplishment for the business.
  4. (grammar, semantics) The lexical aspect (aktionsart) of verbs or predicates that change over time until a natural end point.
    • 1997, Robert van Valin, Randy LaPolla, Syntax‎[1], pages 183-84:
      Thus it is attested that some children have taken an accomplishment verb like disappear, which does not have a causative counterpart, and used it as a causative accomplishment in sentences like He disappeared it, i.e. ‘He made it disappear.’

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

References[edit]

  1. ^ The Chambers Dictionary, 9th Ed., 2003
  2. ^ “accomplishment”, in Collins English Dictionary.
  3. ^ “accomplishment”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

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