- acquirement
- acquirement, acquisition, attainment, accomplishment denote in common a power or skill that is the fruit of exertion or effort; in this sense they are often used in the plural.Acquirement implies achievement as a result of continued endeavor and self-cultivation rather than of natural gifts or talent{
a woman of considerable information and literature; acquirements not common amongst . . . ladies— Edgeworth
}Acquisition may add to acquirement the implications that the thing acquired is an addition or gain and that the endeavor to acquire has been characterized by avidity and stress{perhaps it was a mistake to force her into the rigid groove of classical learning . . . from it she got very unusual acquisitions, but overstimulation broke her health— Parrington
}As applied to an acquired power or skill, acquisition usually stresses, as acquirement does not, the inherent value of that power or skill{absolute disinterestedness is a rare acquisition, even in historians
}{no philosopher would resign his mental acquisitions for the purchase of any terrestrial good— Peacock
}Attainment commonly refers to distinguished achievements as in the arts, in statesmanship, in science; it suggests fully developed talent{artists of high attainments
}{remarkable literary attainments
}Accomplishment refers to any acquired power or grace such as may make for agreeable social intercourse{my new accomplishment of dancing— Charles Churchill
}{we found that even for Men of Science this neat clean carving of words was a very necessary accomplishment— Quiller-Couch
}{an accomplishment of which he was a perfect exponent, the interchange of humorous and agreeable civilities— Repplier
}Contrasted words: *lack, want, dearth, defect, privation
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
