"try as one may" meaning in English

See try as one may in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Rhymes: -eɪ Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} try as one may
  1. However hard one tries; despite one's best efforts. Synonyms: try as one might Related terms: with all one's might
    Sense id: en-try_as_one_may-en-phrase-jPUyb~lj Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

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  "head_templates": [
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        "2": "phrase"
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      "expansion": "try as one may",
      "name": "head"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1890, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “English-grown Tobacco”, in My Lady Nicotine: A Study in Smoke, Boston, Mass.: Joseph Knight Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 184:",
          "text": "It was an extraordinary thing that, try as we might, we could not finish our pipes at the same time.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XXVI, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only, →OCLC:",
          "text": "'It could afford to be materialistic,' said Birkin, 'because it had the power to be something other--which we haven't. We are materialistic because we haven't the power to be anything else--try as we may, we can't bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of materialism.'",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Michael Myers, Doctors’ Marriages: A Look at the Problems and Their Solutions:",
          "text": "They didn't persist and quickly drove off, as Sam and Tom tried to ignore them and dismiss the entire experience. But try as they may, they weren't able to forget.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "However hard one tries; despite one's best efforts."
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      "id": "en-try_as_one_may-en-phrase-jPUyb~lj",
      "links": [
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          "However",
          "however"
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "tries",
          "try#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "best",
          "good#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "with all one's might"
        }
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "try as one might"
        }
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  ],
  "sounds": [
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  "word": "try as one may"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
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  "related": [
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        "Rhymes:English/eɪ",
        "Rhymes:English/eɪ/4 syllables"
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          "ref": "1890, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “English-grown Tobacco”, in My Lady Nicotine: A Study in Smoke, Boston, Mass.: Joseph Knight Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 184:",
          "text": "It was an extraordinary thing that, try as we might, we could not finish our pipes at the same time.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XXVI, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only, →OCLC:",
          "text": "'It could afford to be materialistic,' said Birkin, 'because it had the power to be something other--which we haven't. We are materialistic because we haven't the power to be anything else--try as we may, we can't bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of materialism.'",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "ref": "2013, Michael Myers, Doctors’ Marriages: A Look at the Problems and Their Solutions:",
          "text": "They didn't persist and quickly drove off, as Sam and Tom tried to ignore them and dismiss the entire experience. But try as they may, they weren't able to forget.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "However hard one tries; despite one's best efforts."
      ],
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  "sounds": [
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "try as one might"
    }
  ],
  "word": "try as one may"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.