Word.ws English Dictionary

striven

/ˈstɹɪvən/

striven is the past participle of strive.

Meaning of strive

Verb

strive (third-person singular simple present strives, present participle striving, simple past strove or strived, past participle striven or strived or (nonstandard, colloquial) strove)

  1. To try to achieve a result; to make strenuous effort; to try earnestly and persistently.
    • He strove to excel.
    Synonyms:
    seek, pursue, reach for
  2. To struggle in opposition; to be in contention or dispute; to contend; to contest.
    • to strive against fate
  3. To vie; to compete as a rival.
    • [Not] that sweet grove
      Of Daphne, by Orontes and the inspired
      Castalian spring, might with this paradise
      Of Eden strive.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

Synonyms of striven

Words that rhyme with striven

Questions about striven

What is striven the past participle of?
Striven is the past participle of strive.
How do you pronounce striven?
Striven is pronounced /ˈstɹɪvən/.

Words near striven in the dictionary

  1. Strites
  2. Strittmatter
  3. Strittmatters
  4. strive
  5. strived
  6. striven
  7. striver
  8. strivers
  9. strives
  10. strivest
  11. striveth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: striven (page history and authors); strive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-striven.wav.

Cite this entry: “striven.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/striven. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.