assert

Formsasserts, asserting, asserted

Pluralasserts

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To state something firmly and confidently, declaring it to be true.

   The witness asserted that she had seen the whole accident.

   Critics assert that the new policy will harm small businesses.

   Similarclaim, declare, state, maintain, contend

   Oppositedeny

   Note

   Behind the confident statement lies a Latin legal gesture: asserō meant to declare someone free or a slave by laying hands on them. From that came 'lay claim to' and 'declare'. In modern English this sense usually takes a that-clause (others assert that humans are not the only species) and carries more conviction than say or state. It does not, by itself, make the claim true.

2. 2
   verbreflexivetransitive

   To insist firmly on one's rights or opinions, refusing to be dismissed or overlooked.

   New managers often struggle to assert themselves with older staff.

   He finally asserted himself and refused to be talked over.

   Note

   The reflexive form takes a pronoun matching the subject: I assert myself, they assert themselves. With no other object, the meaning shifts from claiming something to claiming a place, being heard rather than talked over. The adjective assertive names the same quality. Someone who learns to assert themselves is becoming more assertive, not making more statements.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To maintain or defend a cause, claim, or right through words or actions.

   The company moved quickly to assert its patent rights in court.

   Coastal nations asserted their claims over the disputed fishing grounds.

   Similardefend, enforce, uphold, press

   Oppositewaive, relinquish, renounce

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To exercise a power, right, or quality, and in doing so prove that it exists.

   The court's ruling allowed the state to assert its jurisdiction over the case.

   Through repeated victories, the team asserted its dominance in the league.

   Similarexercise, exert, establish, demonstrate

   Note

   Here the proof is in the doing rather than the saying. Where the declaring sense takes a that-clause, this one takes a noun such as authority, a right or dominance, and exercising it is what shows it exists. Salman Rushdie's line about having asserted his right to be identified as author shows the pattern: a right is named, then claimed by being used.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To declare that a condition must be true at a given point in source code, causing the program to fail if it is not.

   Good programmers assert key assumptions so that bugs surface early.

   The function asserts that the pointer is not null before proceeding.

   Note

   Programmers borrowed the everyday sense of stating something positively and pointed it at the code itself. The object is a condition, phrased as what must be so: assert that the pointer is not null. A person's assertion can be disputed, but the program's can fail outright. That failure is the point, because it marks the spot where an assumption broke. The check itself is called an assert.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To set a signal on a line by applying a voltage or electric current to it.

   The processor asserts the interrupt line to request attention from the CPU.

   Once the buffer fills, the device must assert the ready signal.

   Oppositedeassert

   Note

   Electronics uses the word for hardware, not argument. What gets asserted is a line or a signal, such as the interrupt line or the ready signal, and it is done with a voltage or current rather than words. It is easy to confuse with the programmer's check, since both live near computers. The test is whether the thing asserted is a condition in code or a signal on a wire.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A statement in code declaring that a condition must hold, used as a safeguard against errors.

   A failed assert pointed the team straight to the broken function.

   He scattered asserts throughout the module to verify each assumption.

   Similarassertion

   Note

   The noun is the verb turned into a name for the check it performs. Its plural, asserts, is spelled exactly like the verb's third-person form, so a module full of asserts asserts many things. Assertion is the fuller synonym and means the same thing here. Assert is simply the shorter word for one of these checks in code.

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