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say it: EF-urt
effort is a noun meaning "earnest and conscientious activity intended to do or accomplish something". It is pronounced /ˈɛfɚt/ — EF-urt. It carries 4 recorded senses.
use of physical or mental energy; hard work
“he got an A for effort”
“they managed only with great exertion”
a notable achievement
“he performed a great feat”
“the book was her finest effort”
a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end
“he supported populist campaigns”
“they worked in the cause of world peace”
“the team was ready for a drive toward the pennant”
“the movement to end slavery”
“contributed to the war effort”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for effort come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.