Definition of "effect"

The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […] The bed was the most extravagant piece. Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess‎

The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.

2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8839, page 55

patchwork […] introduced for oratorical effect

1832 October, unknown author, “The Tears of Parents”, in The Christian Observer, volume 32

The effect was heightened by the wild and lonely nature of the place.

1832, Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra

That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between / The effect and it.

c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene v]

The colored bands of color that strobe through much of the text and other visual elements are perhaps the most prototypical of all Amiga demoscene effects and, again, are a direct result of the hardware on which Megademo was created to run.

2018, Jimmy Maher, The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, page 186

His Goods, Family, and all his Effects were also ſeiz'd every where, and his Family carried into Priſon.

1690, “A Relation of the Late Great Revolution in Siam, and the Driving Out of the French”, in A Full and True Relation of the Great and Wonderful Revolution That Hapned Lately in the Kingdom of Siam in the East-Indies, London: Randal Taylor, page 7

They spake to her to that effect.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 2 Chronicles 34:22

no other in effect than what it seems

1642, John Denham, Cooper's Hill

All the large effects / That troop with majesty.

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

The offence thus given naturally effected an entire conversion in the queen's sentiments, and when Arthur returned from hunting, like Potiphar's wife, she charges Launfal with attempting her honour.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 57

The punishment for sodomy, when completely effected, was death, and it was frequently inflicted.

1927, Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6)‎

The transfer by tender of some 1,300 mail bags was effected smartly, and the "Ocean Mails Special" train was ready at 9.19 a.m.

1944 July and August, Charles E. Lee, “The "City of Truro"”, in Railway Magazine, page 202