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achieve

/əˈtʃiːv//əˈtʃiːv/·verb
to reach or attain a goal successfully through effort
Fig. 1 — I watch someone start up the long face of the hill, small against it, taking the slope one even step at a time and never hurrying.
01Definition

To achieve something is to reach it on purpose and at a cost — to bring a goal all the way to its head after effort, not to stumble into it. The word comes from Old French achever, 'to bring to a head', and that finishing sense still clings to it: you achieve a result, a target, a standard, rarely a small daily act. It implies the climb behind the outcome, which is why we speak of a hard-won achievement and never of achieving breathing.

02In use
  • iShe finally achieved a perfect score after months of quiet, stubborn practice.
  • iiTo achieve fluency, you have to persist through the stage where every sentence feels clumsy.
  • iiiThe reforms achieved very little, because almost no one was willing to abandon the old routine.
03Collocations
  • achieve a goal
  • achieve success
  • achieve a high score
  • hard to achieve
  • achieve a balance

Family achievement (noun) · achievable (adjective) · achiever (noun)

04Relations

=attain, accomplish, realize, secure, reach

≠fail, abandon, forfeit

05Compared
PairThe difference
achieve vs abandongive it up before the finish → abandon; reach the finish → achieve.
achieve vs give uppush through to the finish → achieve; stop trying → give up.
achieve vs pursuestill going after the goal → pursue; the goal reached at last → achieve.
06TOEFL & IELTS

One of the highest-frequency academic verbs and a natural upgrade from 'get' or 'reach'. It takes goal-like objects: achieve a goal / result / target / standard / consensus / a balance — never 'achieve a problem'. In IELTS Task 2 it powers thesis sentences ('to achieve sustainable growth, governments must…'). Watch the spelling (i before e) and the smooth /tʃ/ start.

07Asked
What is the difference between achieve, accomplish, and attain?
Achieve reaches a goal through effort ('achieve a dream'); accomplish completes a task or mission ('accomplish everything on the list'); attain arrives at a level or standard, and is the most formal ('attain fluency', 'attain the rank of colonel'). Rough map: achieve goals, accomplish tasks, attain levels.
Is it spelled 'achieve' or 'acheive'?
Achieve — and it is one of the words where the school rhyme genuinely works: i before e, except after c. Here the c is followed by h, not directly by the vowels, so ie stands: a-c-h-i-e-v-e. The misspelling 'acheive' is so common that spell-checkers fix it silently — so writers never learn it, and it survives in handwriting.
What nouns go with achieve?
Goal-shaped ones: achieve a goal, a target, a result, a balance, consensus, growth, success. The object must be an endpoint you aim at — which is why 'achieve a problem' fails, and 'achieve a task' loses to accomplish. One more rule: achieve never takes an infinitive ('achieved to win' is wrong — that slot belongs to manage to). If you can 'set' it beforehand, you can usually achieve it afterwards.
How do you pronounce achieve?
Uh-CHEEV (/əˈtʃiːv/) — two syllables only, with a smooth ch as in cheese, identical in American and British English. The common learner slips are adding a third syllable ('a-chi-eve') or hardening the ch to k. Achievement simply adds -ment with no stress change: uh-CHEEV-ment.
What is the noun form of achieve?
Achievement — with a family worth mining: achievable ('achievable targets' is project-speak), achiever, and the loaded pair overachiever and underachiever, which grade people against expectations. 'A sense of achievement' is the fixed phrase examiners see; 'sense of achieve' and 'make an achievement' are the classic miswrites.
What is the difference between achieve and pursue or abandon?
Pursue is the chase still running, achieve is the arrival, abandon is quitting the chase — each contrast has its own animated page in the 'Compared' list above. In the scene above, the whole climb is pursuit; achieving is the single instant the hand closes on the light at the top and it flares.