Definitions

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

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of ask.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • ’ Then he asked about the old war, —told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java, —asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him.

    The Man without a Country 1917

  • "Once I asked and _asked_ about a stiff upper lip."

    The Poor Little Rich Girl Eleanor Gates 1913

  • The captain has given us our evening to ourselves, and has asked us (_asked_, you notice, for our Sunday afternoon is our own) to give him the time tomorrow.

    At Plattsburg Allen French 1908

  • "She asked me to marry her that day; _asked_ me, you understand."

    The Iron Woman Margaret Wade Campbell Deland 1901

  • Miss Wrenner was going to be asked to play the heroine if they could get her -- no -- I'm wrong, it was that _she_ had _asked_ to play the heroine, and that they meant to get out of it if they could.

    Love's Shadow Ada Leverson 1897

  • John's mother asked him →John's mother asked_______________________________________________ 24.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows tranhang56 2009

  • His expression asked her not to pursue that matter further.

    WORLD OF WARCRAFT STORMRAGE Richard A. Knaak 2010

  • His expression asked her not to pursue that matter further.

    WORLD OF WARCRAFT STORMRAGE Richard A. Knaak 2010

  • His expression asked her not to pursue that matter further.

    WORLD OF WARCRAFT STORMRAGE Richard A. Knaak 2010

  • When we did this record, when the label asked, "Would you talk to him about doing this?" he had just written that song three or four months back with Burt Bacharach.

    Mike Ragogna: Still Awesome After All These Years: An Interview With Producer Phil Ramone 2009

Comments

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  • Am I alone in finding this word a real pain in the arse to read out loud? I always have to slow right down and negotiate it with care.

    May 23, 2008

  • I'm with you on that yarb. As soon as you've negotiated the "sk" -- BAM, you've got that darn "d" and it's almost impossible to not make it sound like a "t." To enunciate it properly, you end up sounding like you've got peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth. I mean, what the hell?

    May 23, 2008

  • Ha ha, peanut butter - that's exactly it!

    It's annoying because it's used all the time in young children's books. Especially poorly written ones where the author is obsessed with using synonyms for said: characters ask, respond, answer, reply... it makes my piss boil! It's what they say that mattters, not how you narrate their saying of it. Bad writing aimed at children, far from being excusable, is more deplorable than bad writing for adults! And yet so many talentless chancers with a grant, or semi-literate illustrators, are foisting their mediocrity on the kids' sections of our public libraries these days. It's the best of times and the worst of times. Rant rant rant.

    May 23, 2008

  • English has something called (I think) progressive assimilation in voicing, which means that if a consonant is unvoiced and is followed immediately by another consonant (without an intervening vowel), then the second consonant also becomes unvoiced. Similarly, if the first consonant is voiced, then the second consonant also becomes voiced. This why "loafs" is pronounced with an "-fs" sound at the end, but "loaves" is pronounced with a "-vz" sound. By the same token, "asked" is correctly pronounced "askt" in Standard English, just as "booked" is pronounced "bookt", "blessed" is "blest", and "rushed" is "rusht". So go ahead and pronounce that "d" as a "t" and feel good about yourselves!

    May 23, 2008

  • I agree on all points. When I read to my children, I would embellish, (with words -- or more often, with sounds) but often, a re-write was in order and I got so I could do it on the fly! I'm guessing you'd be pretty good at it as well ;-)

    The last book I read to my son (now 12) was "A Wrinkle in Time." Quite the challenge, especially on a bad tongue day!

    May 23, 2008

  • I figure I've read more than 50,000 pages to my daughter. The only two words that I routinely botch are "soldier", which often comes out as "shoulder", and "dwarf" which comes out "dorf".

    May 23, 2008

  • No problem m., we love you anyway! :o) Let's see, 50K pages times 1 minute a page, divided by 60...um, well, a buncha hars.

    My own education in "doing all the voices" and emoting same for the kids was during my student teaching days (for starters) so I know how it goes...

    Oh, and BTW isn't there a word for slapping a slab of bread slathered with peeny bunkle up against the roof of a dog's mouth? If not, well, I betcha dere's gonna be, post haste, yah?

    May 23, 2008

  • An even harder word for me to read out loud: gasped.

    June 5, 2008

  • I'm with you there, yarb.

    June 5, 2008