task
Americannoun
-
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)
-
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:
But members of the marshal’s team had their hands full that summer with a new task: ratcheting up security.
From Slate ● Jul. 15, 2026
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon and the DOJ are standing up a joint task force to hunt down and prosecute government leakers.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
They also understand that the difficult task of trying to get a ball to stay on a British Open green becomes even more maddening.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Rejecting that argument, the two High Court judges said the Crown Court's task had been to weigh the competing accounts given by Gordon and Ryan.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
It didn’t require much thought and it was a task with a clear beginning and end.
From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly
The Ukrainian leader has yet to name a replacement and has said only that Kyiv is "changing its political strategy" amid "new challenges and new tasks".
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
They’re marketing the tools as ways to help workers with tedious tasks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
Artificial intelligence has proven it can speed up what humans already know how to do: write software, summarize earnings calls and automate routine tasks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
The team now plans to investigate exactly what signals move learning from one brain region to another and to determine which kinds of tasks can eventually be performed in parallel.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026
The sight of the turnovers made Jo sober again; and when the two went out to their daily tasks, they looked sorrowfully back at the window where they were accustomed to see their mother’s face.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
As he seeks her in the present day, he is tasked with hunting wicked supernatural creatures for the Afterlife Immigration Office.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
A federal monitor tasked with overseeing the union said Fain acted improperly to benefit his fiancée.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
Thomas Tuchel is now tasked with taking the next step.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
It also called for broadly expanding the functions and missions of the General Reconnaissance and Intelligence Bureau, Pyongyang's military intelligence agency tasked with operations involving South Korea.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
The burden fell most heavily on Martin Kamen and others tasked with isotope production.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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
This sequel returns players to The Forbidden Lands, tasking them with, er, hunting monsters of increasing size and strength.
From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2025
Better kingdoms they are asking, Better work than this world's tasking, And God will grant it, where they go, Better service He'll bestow, But for me, alas!
From An Anthology of Jugoslav Poetry; Serbian Lyrics 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.
