assign

Etymology

Old French assigner

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈsaɪn/
• Hyphenation: as‧sign

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪn

Verb

assign (third-person singular simple present assigns, present participle assigning, simple past and past participle assigned)

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.

   • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:

     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, law) To transfer property, a legal right, etc., from one person to another.
6. (transitive, programming) To give (a value) to a variable.

   We assign 100 to x.

Noun

assign (plural assigns)

1. An assignee.
2. (obsolete) A thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.
   • Shakespeare

     Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdles, hangers, and so.