assessment

American  

[uh-ses-muhnt] / əˈsɛs mənt /

noun

assessments plural

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

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• assessments
  plural

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

See Examples For:

assessment assessments

But the foreign ministry otherwise gave a rare positive assessment of diplomatic efforts, saying there was progress over the weekend with Omani officials.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

Police Scotland's deputy assistant chief officer, Kenny Barbour, said the decision to stand down the major incident followed a detailed assessment by emergency responders.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

In a 2018 assessment, more than 50% of DWP’s trunk line segments were more than 65 years old and 11% were more than 100 years old.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026

That’s the assessment from Goldman Sachs analysts led by Ryan Hammond, who crunched the numbers based on last year’s earnings reports.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026

All that stands in the way of our assessment of our sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ancestors as cruel, barbaric monsters is what they produced in art, poetry, architecture and music.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

A statistical analysis showed that having an adviser did not affect investors’ assessments of their investment strategies or their financial futures.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026

Participants completed cognitive assessments at the beginning, midpoint and end of the study.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026

He added that security planning is reviewed annually, while Senedd security, police and UK-wide security partners carry out ongoing risk assessments.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

Hegseth said on Wednesday that servicemembers aged 30 and older would be tested every year during their annual health assessments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

For years, he’s been the subject of a patchwork of commentaries, numerous judgments, and endless character assessments from a spectrum of self-appointed experts.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey

Related Words

• appraisal
• estimate
• judgment