ascribe
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to credit or assign, as to a cause or source; attribute; impute.
The alphabet is usually ascribed to the Phoenicians.
-
to attribute or think of as belonging, as a quality or characteristic.
They ascribed courage to me for something I did out of sheer panic.
verb
-
to credit or assign, as to a particular origin or period
to ascribe parts of a play to Shakespeare
-
to attribute as a quality; consider as belonging to
to ascribe beauty to youth
Usage
Ascribe is sometimes wrongly used where subscribe is meant: I do not subscribe (not ascribe ) to this view
Related Words
See attribute.
Other Word Forms
- ascribable adjective
- unascribed adjective
Etymology
Origin of ascribe
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin ascrībere, equivalent to a- a- 5 + scrībere to scribe 2; replacing Middle English ascrive < Middle French. See shrive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
His embrace of the soon-to-be mayor can most likely be ascribed to a sensible desire to get off on the right foot with the boss of America’s largest city.
UN experts confirmed the use of sarin but they were not asked to ascribe any blame.
From BBC
Wherever the blame is ascribed for Whitehall’s deficiencies, the frustration is beginning to spill into public view.
From BBC
Neuroscientists typically ascribe consciousness and abstract thought to the cerebral cortex, which evolved later in human evolution and wraps around the brain's outer layer in folded gray matter.
From Science Daily
“People are ascribing other things to it,” Miserando, said, when real estate ownership “might be the bigger factor than the angle of how strange it is” to see a company going from Texas to California.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
