Careful Words

attain (v.)

Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush,

In hope her to attain by hook or crook.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto i. St. 17.

  If I have done well, and as is fitting, . . . it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.

Old Testament: 2 Maccabees xv. 38.