ascribe

[uh-skrahyb]

verb (used with object)

ascribed, ascribing 

1. to credit or assign, as to a cause or source; attribute; impute.

   The alphabet is usually ascribed to the Phoenicians.

2. 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.

ascribe

/ əˈskraɪb /

verb

1. to credit or assign, as to a particular origin or period

   to ascribe parts of a play to Shakespeare

2. 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

Other Word Forms

• ascribable adjective
• unascribed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of ascribe¹

1400–50; late Middle English < Latin ascrībere, equivalent to a- a- ⁵ + scrībere to scribe ²; replacing Middle English ascrive < Middle French. See shrive

Word History and Origins

Origin of ascribe¹

C15: from Latin ascrībere to enrol, from ad in addition + scrībere to write

Synonym Study

See attribute.

Example Sentences

How much meaning can we ascribe to an encore?

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

When she died of the plague a few years later, they felt vindicated; one particularly judgy saint ascribed it to her use of a “certain golden instrument.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“And that’s really disappointing and discouraging to a lot of female politicians who don’t ascribe to that type of behavior.”

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Their “internal conflict, depression, and anxiety” is ascribed solely to urges “inconsistent with their faith or values.”

Read more on Salon

But by the 1980s, much chimp behavior was being interpreted in ways that would have been labeled anthropomorphism — ascribing human traits to non-human entities — decades earlier.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• attribute 
• impute