task
Americannoun
-
tasks
plural
-
a definite piece of work assigned to, falling to, or expected of a person; duty.
- Synonyms:
- assignment, job
-
any piece of work.
- Synonyms:
- assignment, job
-
a matter of considerable labor or difficulty.
-
Obsolete. a tax or impost.
verb (used with object)
-
tasks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tasked,
past participle, past
-
tasking
present participle
-
to subject to severe or excessive labor or exertion; put a strain upon (powers, resources, etc.).
-
to impose a task on.
-
Obsolete. to tax.
adjective
idioms
noun
-
a specific piece of work required to be done as a duty or chore
-
an unpleasant or difficult job or duty
-
any piece of work
-
to criticize or reprove
verb
-
to assign a task to
-
to subject to severe strain; tax
Synonym Usage
Task, chore, job, assignment refer to a definite and specific instance or act of work. Task and chore and, to a lesser extent, job often imply work that is tiresome, arduous, or otherwise unpleasant. Task usually refers to a clearly defined piece of work, sometimes of short or limited duration, assigned to or expected of a person: the task of pacifying angry customers; a difficult, time-consuming task. A chore is a minor task, usually one of several performed as part of a routine, as in farming, and often more tedious than difficult: the daily chore of taking out the garbage; early morning chores of feeding the livestock. Job is the most general of these terms, referring to almost any work or responsibility, including a person's means of earning a living: the job of washing the windows; a well-paying job in advertising. Assignment refers to a specific task allocated to a person by someone in a position of authority: a homework assignment; a reporter's assignment to cover international news.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
tasksimple
-
taskssimple
-
have taskedperfect
-
has taskedperfect
-
am taskingprogressive
-
are taskingprogressive
-
is taskingprogressive
-
have been taskingperfect progressive
-
has been taskingperfect progressive
Past
-
taskedsimple
-
had taskedperfect
-
was taskingprogressive
-
were taskingprogressive
-
had been taskingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of task
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English noun, from Medieval Latin tasca, variant of taxa tax ( def. )
Explanation
A task can be big or small, easy or really hard — but it's never more than a job that needs to get done. Chop chop! There's a task that needs completing, and you're just the person for the job. If you're smart though, you'll figure out a way to task someone else with it, or assign it elsewhere. Task comes to us all the way from the Latin word taxare, which in its earliest days meant "to impose a tax on." So much like the filling out of your tax forms, most tasks are considered chores.
Vocabulary lists containing task
TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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Keystone Exams: English Composition Glossary
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Beowulf vocabulary
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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:
The Fed has said the task forces will “produce rigorous findings” for its policy committee to review, potentially by the end of the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
An important task for Root is helping Archer find his best consistently.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
You mentioned the kids’ uncle will take on the role of trustee, with the option of it being managed professionally if he’s not up for the task.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
For every great Statham movie — “Spy,” “Snatch,” “Crank” and its even better sequel — he makes three clunkers that task him merely to scowl and punch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
The first task of the investigation was both incredibly easy and incredibly hard: the police had to make sure the Mona Lisa was no longer in the Louvre.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Aditya Sharma recently went to bed at 6 a.m. after an all-nighter with his crew of generative-AI bots—systems that plan and execute multistep tasks like pulling data and writing code.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
Even something as familiar as driving requires several mental tasks at once.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
On 21 July OpenAI announced some of its AI agents - software systems which can operate alone to accomplish tasks after human instruction - had been involved in what it called an "unprecedented" incident.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
Unitree’s humanoid robots can walk, run and climb and “can imitate & reinforce the learning drive” said the company, referring to algorithms that train the robot’s artificial intelligence as it undertakes tasks.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
So she waited until the BOSUNs had finished their tasks and stomped away.
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
The consortium was tasked with designing, building and financing the project, and operating and maintaining the people mover for 25 years after its completion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Google DeepMind was tasked with accelerating the company’s AI progress.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026
After the ruling, the Elysee said Macron had tasked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu with working on a new "legally robust draft" of the legislation.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
NHS England, which was tasked with implementing report recommendations, said it had worked to "improve outcomes for patients", but surgeons and campaigners believe progress has been slow.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
The remaining camaradas who weren’t sick were tasked with chopping down some trees to make spare paddles—also at Roosevelt’s insistence.
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
The U.S. military is using nonstandard contracts and tasking defense contractors to design new weapons from scratch to cut years off production times and hundreds of millions of dollars off their cost.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Manchester United confirmed Michael Carrick as interim manager until the end of the season on Tuesday, tasking him with leading the Red Devils back into the Champions League.
From Barron's ● Jan. 13, 2026
Google is acquiring Intersect’s workforce and gigawatts of active joint projects, while tasking the company with developing new technologies to expand the energy supply for U.S. data centers.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 22, 2025
It’s incurious about its stomping creatures and barely invested in the humans either, tasking Johansson and most of the cast to play fairly similar shades of hardy and determined.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2025
It was tasking our factories to produce blankets and overcoats, knapsacks and haversacks, wagons and tents, and all that goes to make up the multifarious equipment of an army.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 by Various
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.
