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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary

protested only to fail

Hi Could you tell me what the following sentence means? Does it make sense? Context: There was discrimination against women and some of them protested only to fail.
  

Top answer

There was discrimination against women , and some of them protested only to fail to no avail .

— Deadrat

  • There was discrimination against women , and some of them protested only to fail to no avail .
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2 Answers
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There was discrimination against women, and some of them protested only to failto no avail.
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Anonymoussome of them protested, only to fail.
~ some of them protested, but they failed (to accomplish the goal of their protest).
~ some of them protested, but the result was that they failed.

In that sentence "to fail" is called an infinitive of result. As it is here, such an infinitive is frequently accompanied by an initial "only".

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