What’s there to “Get” between “Attain” and “Obtain”?

Have you ever gotten mixed up over whether to use “attain” or “obtain” in a sentence? That’s what we’re here for! Stick around, and we’ll tell you the difference between these two words.

When you think about online classes, your mind immediately conjures up scenes of innovative ways to learn. To adapt to these difficult times, teachers and students have managed to find new, novel, and special ways of connecting, learning, and growing. Soon, we might even witness a generation of graduates who will have earned their academic degrees fully online. Still . . . is it correct to say that these students will “attain” or “obtain” their hard-earned credits?

Let’s take a step back and think about why we often confuse these two words. Any person would imagine that they mean the same thing, which is “to get something,” and they would not be wrong. Attainment and obtainment both entail a form of receipt or achievement, but how that something is achieved or received (as well as what that something is) is the key to their difference.

For starters, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “attain” as “to reach as an end,” “to come into possession of,” or “to come to as the end of a progression or form of movement.” We imagine that this would be the most apt term to use when we talk about working toward a certain goal. Thus, going back to our earlier example, online learners would “attain” their academic degrees after putting considerable work and effort into their studies.

1. After more than ten years of study and hospital work, she finally attained her medical degree.
2. People often turn to yoga and meditation when they want to attain enlightenment.
3. I would suggest writing your ideas down; it would help you attain your goals.

On the other hand, Merriam-Webster states that to “obtain” something means “to gain or attain usually by planned action or effort.” This is to say that as opposed to “attaining” a goal or objective, when a person “obtains” something, that particular something may likely be concrete rather than abstract, such as a letter of recommendation, a permit, a form of identification, and so on.

1. It astounds me how many hoops you have to jump through to obtain a new passport!
2. Were you able to obtain permission from your parents before heading out of town?
3. It took him a long while to obtain enough credentials for a seat at the board.

In summary, before you consider whether to use “attain” or “obtain” in a sentence, think about what you’re trying to accomplish and/or achieve as well as how you’ll go about doing it. Much like learning a lot of things in general, knowing the difference between certain like-sounding or seemingly similar words takes time, study, and practice. On that note, we hope that this brief lesson helped you attain knowledge on something small but nevertheless significant, and we wish you well as you learn a lot more things—academic or not, online or otherwise!

Interested in more grammar tips after reading this article? Then hop onto our Grammar Chaos series over at 1-Hour Proofreading blog!

Sources:

• Definition of Attain by Merriam-Webster
• Definition of Obtain by Merriam-Webster
• Grammar and Usage: “attain” vs. “obtain” by Wordsmyth Blog

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