Help with the verb (キスをしようとした) in a sentence from Harry Potter 1

Japanese Language
1

Hello,
I’m reading Harry Potter in Japanese, with some friends. None of us are advanced, really, but we’re mostly muddling through.
There was this sentence in the first chapter though - we get the gist of it (he [mr. Dursley] then went to give a goodbye kiss to the Dursle boy, but missed).

We can’t quite understand how the last verb between キスを and が works. That is, what exactly does it mean? Is it even a verb, apart from the した part?

Thank you for any help. Here’s the sentence:

それからダドリー坊やにもバイバイのキスをしようとしたが、しそこなった

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が in this structure means “but” (as in “but failed”)

しようとした means that he attempted to do

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～ようとする means to try to do something. Where ～よう is the volitional form of a verb.

So キスをしようとした means “tried to kiss.”

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Leebo’d :wink:

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Awesome, thank you both, for the explanations and the resource! :slight_smile:
I’m bookmarking that imabi link and next time I’ll try searching there too. It looks super useful.
Have a good day :slight_smile:

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