assay

Etymology

From Middle English assay (noun) and assayen (verb), from Anglo-Norman assai (noun) and Anglo-Norman assaier (verb), from Old French essai. Doublet of essay.

noun

1. Trial, attempt.
2. Examination and determination; test.
3. The qualitative or quantitative chemical analysis of something.
4. Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried.
5. Tested purity or value.
6. The act or process of ascertaining the proportion of a particular metal in an ore or alloy; especially, the determination of the proportion of gold or silver in bullion or coin.
7. The alloy or metal to be assayed.

verb

1. (transitive) To attempt (something).
   Who seest the stark array And hast not stayed to count But singly wilt assay The many-cannoned mount[…]. 1936, Alfred Edward Housman, More Poems, IV, The Sage to the Young Man, ll.5-8
   Speaking before a small crowd beneath antique airplanes suspended in the atrium of the State of Iowa Historical Museum, an effortfully cheerful Mr Romney assayed an early version of a stump speech I imagine will become a staple of his campaign for the Republican nomination, once it "officially" begins some time next week in New Hampshire. 28 May 2011, “All-pro, anti-American”, in The Economist
2. (archaic, intransitive) To try, attempt (to do something).
3. (transitive) To analyze or estimate the composition or value of (a metal, ore etc.).
4. (obsolete, transitive) To test the abilities of (someone) in combat; to fight.
   The marquis, in obsession for his wife, Longed to expose her constancy to test. He could not throw the thought away or rest, Having a marvellous passion to assay her; Needless, God knows, to frighten and dismay her, He had assayed her faith enough before And ever found her good; what was the need Of heaping trial on her, more and more? 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 351
5. To affect.
6. To try tasting, as food or drink.