assign

American  

[uh-sahyn] / əˈsaɪn /

verb (used with object)

• assigns,
  present (3rd person singular)
• assigned,
  past participle,  past
• assigning
  present participle

1. to give or allocate; allot.

   to assign rooms at a hotel.

2. to give out or announce as a task.

   to assign homework.

3. to appoint, as to a post or duty.

   to assign one to guard duty.

4. to designate; name; specify.

   to assign a day for a meeting.

   Synonyms:

   determine, fix

5. to ascribe; attribute; bring forward.

   to assign a cause.

   Synonyms:

   offer, show, advance, allege, adduce

6. Law. to transfer.

   to assign a contract.

7. Military. to place permanently on duty with a unit or under a commander.

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verb (used without object)

• assigns,
  present (3rd person singular)
• assigned,
  past participle,  past
• assigning
  present participle

1. Law. to transfer property, especially in trust or for the benefit of creditors.

noun

• assigns
  plural

1. Law. Usually assigns. a person to whom the property or interest of another is or may be transferred; assignee.

   my heirs and assigns.

assign British  

/ əˈsaɪn /

verb

1. to select for and appoint to a post, etc

   to assign an expert to the job

2. to give out or allot (a task, problem, etc)

   to assign advertising to an expert

3. to set apart (a place, person, time, etc) for a particular function or event

   to assign a day for the meeting

4. to attribute to a specified cause, origin, or source; ascribe

   to assign a stone cross to the Vikings

5. to transfer (one's right, interest, or title to property) to someone else

6. (also intr) law (formerly) to transfer (property) to trustees so that it may be used for the benefit of creditors

7. military to allocate (men or materials) on a permanent basis Compare attach

8. computing to place (a value corresponding to a variable) in a memory location

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noun

1. law a person to whom property is assigned; assignee

Synonym Usage

Assign, allocate, allot mean to apportion or measure out. To assign is to distribute available things, designating them to be given to or reserved for specific persons or purposes: to assign duties. To allocate is to earmark or set aside parts of things available or expected in the future, each for a specific purpose: to allocate income to various types of expenses. To allot implies making restrictions as to amount, size, purpose, etc., and then apportioning or assigning: to allot spaces for parking.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• assignability
  noun
• assigner
  noun
• misassign
  verb
• preassign
  verb (used with object)
• reassign
  verb (used with object)
• assignable
  adjective
• nonassigned
  adjective
• preassigned
  adjective
• self-assigned
  adjective
• unassigned
  adjective
• well-assigned
  adjective
• assignably
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• assigns
  plural

Participles

• assigning
  present
• assigned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• assign
  simple
• assigns
  simple
• have assigned
  perfect
• has assigned
  perfect
• am assigning
  progressive
• are assigning
  progressive
• is assigning
  progressive
• have been assigning
  perfect progressive
• has been assigning
  perfect progressive

Past

• assigned
  simple
• had assigned
  perfect
• was assigning
  progressive
• were assigning
  progressive
• had been assigning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will assign
  simple
• will have assigned
  perfect
• will be assigning
  progressive
• will have been assigning
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of assign

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English assignen, from Old French assigner, from Latin assignāre; equivalent to as- + sign

Explanation

To assign is to specify something or someone for a specific purpose. If your sisters fight over whose turn it is to sit in the front seat, your parents may have to assign turns. The verb assign also means to transfer legal rights. You assign the deed to your house to new owners when you sell it. If you sort things into categories by characteristics, you are assigning them categories. When you make a budget, you assign each expense a category. Food and housing, for example, may be essential living expenses and medicine and doctor's visits may be health care. Chocolate gets its own category.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

assign assigns assigned assigning

It’s also important not to assign any meaning to a boss’s actions before talking to them, said Tessa West, a psychology professor at New York University and author of the book “Jerks at Work.”

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026

Each member state must anonymously assign each candidate one of three labels: "encourage," "discourage," or "no opinion."

From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026

It cannot tell me what level of risk I should assign to that fact.

From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026

"It makes it harder to assign attribution because if all of your attacks and groups are coming out of Iran, you can pretty much link it to Iran," Wright said.

From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026

We’ve had to assign a student to act as receptionist in each class period.

From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers

The Federal Communications Commission assigns and oversees licenses for radio and television broadcast frequencies.

From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026

AMD plans to sell Taalas technology inside systems alongside its Instinct GPUs, and a lender financing the whole rack reveals nothing about what it assigns to the model-specific part.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026

“What we object to is a review that misstates the plan’s contents and reaches beyond the issues the Education Code assigns to the county, all while threatening escalation.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026

That number is the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s “heat-sensitivity score,” a rating a computer assigns based on medical conditions and medications that could make someone more susceptible to heat.

From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2026

Scientists rate the strength of an earthquake using the moment magnitude scale, a system that gauges the amount of energy released by the quake and assigns it a number.

From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland

Key to lofty valuations being assigned to the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI is the assumption of massive growth—growth that can only occur if more data centers are opened to build and fuel AI’s expanse.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026

Because genes are assigned before many lifestyle choices and diseases develop, the technique can sometimes provide stronger clues about cause and effect than an observational study alone.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026

The hairstylist and stay-at-home dad said that giving the agents names has helped him keep track of their assigned tasks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026

In one study, external from the University of Oxford, participants were given sleep trackers which assigned them a sleep score.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

A curtain was provided to hang like a screen, to give some privacy to the cots assigned to Madame Babushkinov, Penelope, and Veronika.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

The findings also underscore the risks of assigning identities to extinct animals primarily from their physical appearance.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026

For his students next semester, kids raised in a purportedly “post-literature era,” he’s assigning three 700-page novels, he noted mischievously, books by George Eliot, Ralph Ellison and Kiran Desai.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

I’m not saying you need to like your boss, but assigning her silence any kind of meaning is harming your sanity and happiness.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

Boll believes Germany “banned” the film by not assigning it an age rating, fearing it could incite violence, making it unfit for German theatrical release.

From Salon ● Jun. 30, 2026

The formal document assigning the island to Tycho was signed by the King on 23 May.

From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin

Related Words

• accredit
• allow
• appoint
• attach
• authorize
• charge
• commit
• designate
• draft
• elect
• empower
• entrust
• hire
• name
• nominate
• refer
• select