assessment

American  

[uh-ses-muhnt] / əˈsɛs mənt /

noun

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

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

Etymology

Origin of assessment

First recorded in 1530–40; assess + -ment

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

The intelligence community "assesses that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification," said its Annual Threat Assessment report.

From Barron's • Mar. 19, 2026

Small tax sums would normally be collected by the Simple Assessment process where HM Revenue and Customs does all the calculations and sends the pensioner a tax demand at the end of the year.

From BBC • Nov. 28, 2025

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which periodically tests a sample of students and is known as the nation’s report card, showed flat or declining scores in English language arts and math.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 13, 2025

Unlike the SAT, which considers its content proprietary, legally protected information, many of the America-First Assessment questions are publicly available.

From Salon • Nov. 5, 2025

They acted with utter confidence, because their Operational Net Assessment matrixes told them where Red Team’s vulnerabilities were, what Red Team’s next move was likely to be, and what Red Team’s range of options was.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Related Words

• appraisal
• estimate
• judgment