assessment

American  

[uh-ses-muhnt] / əˈsɛs mənt /

noun

• assessments
  plural

1. the act of assessing; appraisal; evaluation.

2. an official valuation of property for the purpose of levying a tax; an assigned value.

3. an amount assessed as payable.

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assessment British  

/ əˈsɛsmənt /

noun

1. the act of assessing, esp (in Britain) the evaluation of a student's achievement on a course

2. an amount determined as payable

3. a valuation set on taxable property, income, etc

4. evaluation; estimation

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assessment Cultural  

1. The appraisal of property for the purposes of taxation.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• misassessment
  noun
• overassessment
  noun
• reassessment
  noun
• self-assessment
  noun
• proassessment
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• assessments
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of assessment

First recorded in 1530–40; assess + -ment

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Explanation

Assessment is a word you hear a lot around schools — an assessment is an evaluation, and one type of assessment is used to measure what someone knows or has learned. Tests and term papers can be assessment tools. More than just students are given assessments. You might bring your dad's plastic gnome collection to an expert for an assessment and find out it's worth all of $15.35. You might make a quick assessment of a sticky situation — say it's you, a tasty ham sandwich, and your hungry dog— and decide to run.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

assessment assessments

Since several multi-agency meetings and workshops have and are planned to discuss the risk assessment required by agencies for rescue and recovery operations around the groynes.

From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026

That said, if you ask the average person on the street how the country is doing, you’d probably get a much darker assessment of America.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 1, 2026

An assessment of the injured was ongoing, prosecutors said, adding that the reported injuries include second-degree burns.

From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2026

The number of days spent in California also is factored into the board’s assessment of residency.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026

After all of the recent rejections, this assessment of my potential ignited a spark that I thought had long since been extinguished.

From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad

What must change is how universities design curricula and assessments so that artificial intelligence augments students’ learning.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2026

Some participants entered one of the studies as early as 2004, while the most recent follow-up assessments took place in 2025.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 31, 2026

The Pentagon has declined to give specific assessments of base damage, and major U.S. commercial satellite companies stopped releasing high-resolution imagery of military installations in the region early in the war.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026

In a later post on social media, Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said that "according to initial assessments, two individuals have lost their lives in the incident, and five others have been injured".

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

I also knew that the women’s national team members went to camp at the ranch every four to six weeks for skills training and assessments, known as verifications.

From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles

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Related Words

• appraisal
• estimate
• judgment

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