Assign

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aɪn

Origin

Old French assigner

Full definition of assign

Verb

1. (transitive) To designate or set apart something for some purpose.
   to assign a day for trial
2. (transitive) To appoint or select someone for some office.
   to assign counsel for a prisoner
3. (transitive) To allot or give something as a task.
• Robert Southey (1774-1843)The man who could feel thus was worthy of a better station than that in which his lot had been assigned.
• William H. Prescott (1796-1859)He assigned to his men their several posts.
• 1910, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price Chapter 1, Captain Edward Carlisle...felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze,...; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
4. (transitive) To attribute or sort something into categories.
5. (transitive, legal) To transfer property, a legal right, etc., from one person to another.
6. (transitive, computing, programming) To give (a value) to a variable.
   We assign 100 to x.

Derived terms

• assignment
• assignable
• assignation

Noun

1. An assignee.
2. (obsolete) A thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.
• ShakespeareSix French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdles, hangers, and so.