# assignment

Pronunciation: say "uh-SYN-muhnt" /əˈsaɪnmənt/

## Noun

1. A task that someone has been given to carry out.
   - Simple: A job or piece of work that someone gives you to do.
   - _The reporter accepted a difficult assignment in a conflict zone._
   - _She completed every assignment her manager handed her without complaint._
2. A task that a teacher gives to students, such as homework or coursework.
   - Simple: A piece of school work that a teacher gives students to do.
   - _Students must submit the assignment by Friday at midnight._
   - _Her history assignment required nearly two weeks of research._
3. The act of assigning, or the handing out of a job or set of tasks.
   - Simple: The act of giving someone a job or a set of tasks to do.
   - _The manager oversaw the assignment of cases to each lawyer._
   - _Random assignment of participants helps reduce bias in experiments._
4. A post or position that someone is sent to take up.
   - Simple: A job or post that someone is sent to fill.
   - _The diplomat's latest assignment placed her in Geneva._
   - _After training, each officer awaited a field assignment._
5. The transfer of a legal right or benefit from one party to another.
   - Simple: The passing of a right or benefit from one person to another.
   - _The contract permitted the assignment of payment rights to a third party._
   - _Creditors challenged the assignment of the debtor's outstanding claims._
6. A document that carries out the transfer of a right or benefit from one party to another.
   - Simple: A legal paper that carries out the transfer of a right from one person to another.
   - _Both parties executed the assignment before a notary._
   - _The recorded assignment proved who held the rights._
7. In computer programming, an operation that sets a variable to hold a particular value.
   - Simple: A step in a program that gives a value to a variable.
   - _Each assignment updates the variable with a new result._
   - _The compiler flagged an assignment to an undeclared variable._
8. The act of placing something into the category it belongs to.
   - Simple: The act of putting something into a group it belongs to.
   - _The assignment of species to families relies on shared physical traits._
   - _Errors in the assignment of costs to departments skewed the budget._
9. The act of categorizing a person as belonging to the male or female sex, typically done at birth.
   - Simple: The act of recording a person as male or female, usually at birth.
   - _Her sex assignment at birth was recorded as female._
   - _The assignment of sex appears on the original birth record._

## Origin

From Middle English assignement, borrowed from Old French assignement; it can also be analyzed as 'assign' plus the suffix '-ment'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/assignment (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).