Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To select for a duty or office; appoint: synonym: appoint.
  • transitive verb To set apart for a particular purpose or place in a particular category; designate: synonym: allocate.
  • transitive verb To give out as a task; allot.
  • transitive verb To ascribe; attribute: synonym: attribute.
  • transitive verb To match or pair with.
  • transitive verb Law To transfer (property, rights, or interests) from one to another.
  • noun An assignee.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To set apart; make over by distribution or appropriation; apportion; allot.
  • To point out; show; designate; specify.
  • To give, furnish, or specify: as, to assign a reason for anything.
  • To appoint; select for a duty or office: as, the officer assigned to the charge of a military department.
  • To ascribe; attribute; refer.
  • In law: To transfer or make over to another the right one has in any object, as in an estate, chose in action, or reversion, especially in trust for the security of creditors: rarely applied to testamentary transfers. To show or set forth with particularity: as, to assign error in a writ; to assign false judgment, To point out or substantiate as a charge: as, perjury cannot be assigned on an oath taken without the jurisdiction of the officer administering it.
  • Adduce, Allege, etc. (see adduce); to determine, give, name, present.
  • noun A person to whom the property or interest of another is or may be transferred: as, a deed to a man and his heirs and assigns.
  • noun [Assign is a broader word than assignee. The assignees of a person are usually understood to mean those who take immediately from him, by his assignment; the assigns of a person include all who acquire title under his transfer, immediately or remotely.]
  • noun A thing pertaining to something else; an appurtenance; an appendage.
  • noun Assignment; appointment.
  • noun Design; purpose; object.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb (Law) To transfer or pass over property to another, whether for the benefit of the assignee or of the assignor's creditors, or in furtherance of some trust.
  • transitive verb To appoint; to allot; to apportion; to make over.
  • transitive verb To fix, specify, select, or designate; to point out authoritatively or exactly
  • transitive verb (Law) To transfer, or make over to another, esp. to transfer to, and vest in, certain persons, called assignees, for the benefit of creditors.
  • transitive verb to set out by metes and bounds the widow's share or portion in an estate.
  • noun obsolete A thing pertaining or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.
  • noun (Law) A person to whom property or an interest is transferred.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To designate or set apart something for some purpose.
  • verb transitive To appoint or select someone for some office.
  • verb transitive To allot or give something as a task.
  • verb transitive To attribute or sort something into categories.
  • verb transitive (law) To transfer property, a legal right, etc., from one person to another.
  • noun An assignee.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb transfer one's right to
  • verb attribute or give
  • verb select something or someone for a specific purpose
  • verb decide as to where something belongs in a scheme
  • verb make undue claims to having
  • verb give an assignment to (a person) to a post, or assign a task to (a person)
  • verb give out
  • verb attribute or credit to

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English assignen, from Old French assigner, from Latin assignāre : ad-, ad- + signāre, to mark (from signum, sign; see sekw- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French assigner

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Examples

  • But we had been all over which sanatorium any day for years during a time, as good as for dual years had been a Physician in assign of a Emergency Room, myself.

    Philadelphia Reflections: Shakspere Society of Philadelphia admin 2009

  • The assign is a ultimate in a legal conflict in between New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as fume shops upon a Poospatuck Indian Reservation over a sale of millions of dollars in untaxed cigarettes.

    Indian reservation cigarettes under fire in NY - Las Vegas Now admin 2009

  • But we had been all over which sanatorium any day for years during a time, as good as for dual years had been a Physician in assign of a Emergency Room, myself.

    Archive 2009-11-01 admin 2009

  • The assign is a ultimate in a legal conflict in between New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as fume shops upon a Poospatuck Indian Reservation over a sale of millions of dollars in untaxed cigarettes.

    Archive 2009-12-01 admin 2009

  • In the absence of a candidate for a designer (and even Behe admits that design requires a designer) then the only probability I can be assign is zero.

    Confirmation Bias and ID 2006

  • In the absence of a candidate for a designer (and even Behe admits that design requires a designer) then the only probability I can be assign is zero.

    Confirmation Bias and ID 2006

  • Therefore, when a minister utters a word, the ruler should according to the word assign him a task to accomplish, and according to the result of the accomplishment call the task3 to account.

    The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu 1959

  • The universal nature (e.g. war always evil, bad) you assign is certainly not how 1940s Britain and France would’ve perceived war … there are wars fought for principles greater than the, admittedly, great principal of “preservation of life” … as a European, I think you’d understand this distinction.

    Think Progress » The task of winning hearts and minds 2006

  • Perhaps I'm giving up too easily but I want to assign a word to this.

    May 2006 2006

  • Perhaps I'm giving up too easily but I want to assign a word to this.

    I guess this is English day. 2006

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