Ploy vs Attempt - What's the difference?
ploy | attempt |
A tactic, strategy, or gimmick.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (UK, Scotland, dialect) Sport; frolic.
(military) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.
To try.
* Longfellow
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=
, title= (obsolete) To try to move, by entreaty, by afflictions, or by temptations; to tempt.
* Thackeray
(archaic) To try to win, subdue, or overcome.
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To attack; to make an effort or attack upon; to try to take by force.
* Motley
The action of trying at something.
* We made an attempt to cross the stream, but didn't manage.
* This poem is much better than the feeble attempt of mine.
* It was worth the attempt .
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter
, title=The British Longitude Act Reconsidered
, volume=100, issue=2, page=87
, magazine=
An assault or attack, especially an assassination attempt.
* 1584' ''No man can charge us of any '''attempt against the realm. (Allen's Defence Of English Catholics, cited after Edinburgh review 1883, p. 378)
As nouns the difference between ploy and attempt
is that ploy is a tactic, strategy, or gimmick while attempt is the action of trying at something.As verbs the difference between ploy and attempt
is that ploy is (military) to form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision while attempt is to try.ploy
English
Etymology 1
Noun
(en noun)Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
Etymology 2
Probably abbreviated from deploy.Verb
(en verb)- (Wilhelm)
Antonyms
* deploy (Webster 1913)Anagrams
* ----attempt
English
Verb
(en verb)- I attempted to sing, but my throat was too hoarse.
- to attempt an escape from prison
- Something attempted , something done, / Has earned a night's repose.
Sarah Glaz
Ode to Prime Numbers, volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
- It made the laughter of an afternoon / That Vivien should attempt the blameless king.
- one who attempts the virtue of a woman
- Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further: / Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute.
- to attempt the enemy's camp
- without attempting his adversary's life
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* take a stab at, take a run atNoun
(en noun)citation, passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea}}