try: [13] Try originally meant ‘separate, sift out’. It was borrowed from Old French trier ‘separate, sift’, and it has been speculated that this went back to a Vulgar Latin *trītāre, formed from the past participle of Latin terere ‘rub’ (source of English attrition, detritus, trite, etc). The notion of ‘separation’ led via ‘separating out the good’ to ‘examine, test’ and, in the 14th century, ‘attempt’. The derivative trial [16] was borrowed from Anglo-Norman after the sense ‘attempt’ developed for try in English, and so has never wholeheartedly taken over this meaning. => trial
try (v.)
c. 1300, "examine judiciously, discover by evaluation, test;" mid-14c., "sit in judgment of," also "attempt to do," from Anglo-French trier (13c.), from Old French trier "to pick out, cull" (12c.), from Gallo-Roman *triare, of unknown origin. The ground sense is "separate out (the good) by examination." Sense of "subject to some strain" (of patience, endurance, etc.) is recorded from 1530s. To try on "test the fit of a garment" is from 1690s; to try (something) on for size in the figurative sense is recorded by 1946. Try and instead of try to is recorded from 1680s.
try (n.)
late 15c., "screen for sifting," from try (v.). From 1832 as "an effort, an attempt."
