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.

  • noun Assignment; appointment.
  • noun Design; purpose; object.
  • 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.

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

  • noun (Law) A person to whom property or an interest is transferred.
  • 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.
  • 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.

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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