achieved

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of achieve.

   The team achieved record sales in the final quarter.

   She has achieved more in one year than most colleagues manage in five.

   Note

   One spelling covers both the simple past (she achieved her aim) and the participle. The participle follows have in the perfect and be in the passive (the target was achieved). Only the transitive uses, accomplishing a task or winning a result, can go into the passive. The intransitive use, now especially about academic performance, has none: pupils achieved well, but nothing 'was achieved' in that sense.

2. 2
   adjective

   Successfully reached, gained, or accomplished.

   The committee celebrated its hard-won, achieved objectives.

   An achieved milestone deserves recognition, however small it may seem.

   Similaraccomplished, attained, fulfilled

   Oppositeunfulfilled, unrealized, unmet

   Note

   An either-or adjective: a goal or status is achieved or it is not, so it takes no degrees. Nothing is more achieved or very achieved. It is most at home before a noun (an achieved objective). After be it is hard to tell from the past participle, because the target was achieved reads as a passive. Placing it before the noun is what makes it plainly adjectival.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2