assessor

American  

[uh-ses-er] / əˈsɛs ər /

noun

• assessors
  plural

1. a person who makes assessments, especially for purposes of taxation.

2. an adviser or assistant to a judge, especially one serving as a specialist in some field.

3. Archaic.

   1. a person who shares another's position, rank, or dignity.

   2. a person sitting beside another in an advisory capacity; an advisory associate.

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assessor British  

/ əˈsɛsə /

noun

1. a person who evaluates the merits, importance, etc, of something, esp (in Britain) work prepared as part of a course of study

2. a person who values property for taxation

3. a person who estimates the value of damage to property for insurance purposes

4. a person with technical expertise called in to advise a court on specialist matters

5. a person who shares another's position or rank, esp in an advisory capacity

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• assessorship
  noun
• assessorial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• assessors
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of assessor

1350–1400; Middle English assessour < Medieval Latin assessor one who assesses taxes, Latin: a judge's helper. See assess, -tor

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Explanation

An assessor is a person whose job involves determining how much a house or building is worth. After an assessor establishes the value of a property, it can be taxed appropriately. An assessor, sometimes called a "tax assessor," works for a city or county, aiding the process of collecting taxes from people who own property there. In order to figure out how much someone owes, an assessor compares the person's house to the others in the neighborhood and tallies up things like square footage, number of rooms, and acres of land. In Latin an assessor is "an assistant," though in Late Latin it means "one who assesses taxes."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

assessor assessors

Appointing an assessor would not imply wrongdoing, but would be a way to determine possible links to fires.

From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2026

Meanwhile, the mortgage company, tax assessor and insurer still expect payment from you.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026

Just days before, Lennar had come in with its own mold assessor that found levels of around 500 spores per cubic meter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

A government spokesperson said draft compensation regulations due to be released in the autumn will set out a compensation process through which an independent assessor "would determine what, if any, is payable".

From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026

Doors were opening up and down the hallway: an insurance agent, the tax assessor, a dentist in a white coat, all poking their heads out to see what the fuss was about.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

When both were scored for accuracy by a different group of assessors who didn’t know which translation was which, neither proved to be error-free.

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026

OpenAI said it was "actively finalizing contracts" with third-party safety assessors and would announce details in the coming weeks.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

Any evidence of this type of activity can be judged by council assessors as a deliberate deprivation of assets, external and factored into their final figure of how much you should pay.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

Home builder lawyers say that plaintiff lawyers are relying on flawed testing methods and mold assessors with questionable qualifications, while taking advantage of a growing hysteria across the country about mold’s health effects.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

But most of us are, like Molly’s parents, terrible risk assessors.

From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt

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