Definition of "essay" []

• A short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author. (noun)
• Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay. (noun)
• A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students' capabilities. (noun)
• An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt. (noun)
• To make an attempt at; try. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At its core were two pieces, the title essay and another, "The Eye Is a Part of the Mind," that offered the most sweeping argument against Greenbergian formalism."
• "In his title essay in the recent book, Race, Incarceration, and American Values, Professor Loury sounds the alarm on some of the same concerns the Children's Defense Fund has been raising when we talk about the pipeline to prison crisis."
• "Emerson recognized this connection between nature and a certain elevation of mind, and he explains it in the title essay from "Nature":"