asseverate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of asseverate
First recorded in 1785–95; < Latin assevērātus “spoken in earnest” (past participle of assevērāre ), equivalent to as- as- + sevēr- ( see severe) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To asseverate is to declare or affirm something with confidence and seriousness. When you asseverate, you're not just making a statement; you're saying it with such certainty that there's no room for confusion or doubt. The word comes from the Latin root that means "to affirm or maintain." When you asseverate, you speak with conviction. It's like planting your feet and saying, "This is how it is — no doubt about it!" A witness who gives their testimony in the courtroom may asseverate in order to let everyone know that they are telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Vocabulary lists containing asseverate
The Turn of the Screw
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List 9
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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.
See Examples For:
—At this, the Boy suffered some Confusion, then to asseverate, My Tutor is deceased, Sir.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Why merely say something, when they can declare, assert, expostulate, announce, or asseverate it?
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
They lacked a definite opinion to entertain and a cry to asseverate.
From In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays by Birrell, Augustine
He could hardly, for his confusion, asseverate the "Yes," when Rabette came running in with the almost unsuitably accented tidings, that the mother was coming.
From Titan: A Romance v. 1 (of 2) by Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich
We asseverate it in a peculiarly earnest manner, or with increased positiveness as what can not be disputed.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary by Webster, Noah
In the Daily Mail in 2007, Humphrys asseverated that “vandals” who use “grotesque abbreviations” in their text messages are “pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary”.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2016
Sometimes, Ms. Silveri asseverated, “ ‘she said’ is just the very best way to say that.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2015
Nothing like her had been heard, the audience individually and as a body asseverated, in the six years in which Chicago has had an opera company named for it.
From Time Magazine Archive
Le Temps asseverated that there was a middle course between the guillotine and acquittal—ten or fifteen years in prison.
From Time Magazine Archive
"It is good to be at home again," Dick asseverated more than once during the day; and, "I say, how jolly those primroses look," he exclaimed in the long drawing-room.
From The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece by Sedgwick, Anne Douglas
It was only by addressing his reason in repeated arguments, and by solemnly asseverating my entire fidelity, that I induced him to yield.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863 by Various
She was there admonished to tell the whole truth, but persisted in asseverating that Sidonia had never learned from her how to make a love-drink.
From Sidonia, the Sorceress : the Supposed Destroyer of the Whole Reigning Ducal House of Pomerania — Volume 1 by Meinhold, Wilhelm
Are they to be summarily disposed of as resting upon some tacit assumption of that old-grannyism which delights in asseverating that times are not what they used to be?
From The Unseen World and Other Essays by Fiske, John
I had only wasted time in asseverating that barren reefs are twice as plentiful as half-tucker reefs; ten times as plentiful as wages reefs; and a hundred times as plentiful as pile reefs.
From Such Is Life by Furphy, Joseph
The Governor broke off, annoyed to find himself asseverating for the second time so obvious a fact.
From The Hermit and the Wild Woman by Wharton, Edith
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.
