task
Pluraltasks
Pluraltasks
- 1A piece of work to be done, especially one that is part of someone's job or duties.
Updating the patient records is a routine task for the night nurse.
Among a manager's daily tasks is reviewing each team's progress.
UsageUsually carry out, perform or complete a task; also the task of + -ing: the task of reviewing progress.
Similarjob
- 2An undertaking that is difficult, tiresome, or demanding.
Convincing the committee to change its mind proved a thankless task.
Memorizing the entire manual was a tedious task for the new recruits.
UsageUsually with an adjective naming the effort: a thankless task, a tedious task, an impossible task.
Similarchore, undertaking
Note
Here the weight falls on the effort, and the word usually travels with an adjective that says so: a thankless task, a tedious task, a Sisyphean task. The Economist in 2013 called policing every window-box and hillside for banned plants a Sisyphean task, then said the fight against synthetic drugs made even that look easy.
- 3To assign a task to someone, or to impose one on them.
The committee tasked the auditor with reviewing every account.
Officials task local councils with enforcing the new rules.
UsageUse with + -ing: tasked the auditor with reviewing every account; often passive, be tasked with.
Similarcharge, entrust, assign
Note
Earlier writers used the verb more freely, with a plain object and no with at all. Shakespeare's Ariel invites Prospero to "task / Ariel and all his quality," and Dryden writes "There task thy maids, and exercise the loom."
- 4A process or running instance of a program on a computer.
The operating system schedules each task according to its priority.
Background tasks kept consuming memory until the system stalled.
Similarprocess
Note
Computing borrows the everyday word for a unit of execution that an operating system manages. It may be a process or a thread, and the scheduler allocates it processor time and tracks it as ready, running or blocked. The verbs around it belong to the system: tasks are scheduled and killed, and a user who ends a frozen one is said to kill the task.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The computing sense extends the everyday word for a piece of work. en.wiktionary.org
- A computing task can be a process. en.wiktionary.org
- A computing task can be a thread. freertos.org
- The scheduler selects tasks to receive processor time. freertos.org
- Tasks have ready, running and blocked states. freertos.org
- 5An objective; the aim that someone sets out to achieve.
The expedition's task was to map the unexplored river.
She set herself the task of reading every novel on the prize list before the summer ended.
UsageOften set yourself the task of + -ing, or the task is to + verb: the task was to map the river.
Less common meanings
- 6To charge someone with a fault; to accuse or reproach a person for some failing.
Too impudent to task me with those errors.
c. 1619, John Fletcher, “The Island Princesse”Similarcharge, accuse, reproach
Note
A reproachful use found in John Fletcher's The Island Princesse: "Too impudent to task me with those errors." It shares its with-construction with the assigning verb, so the noun after with tells them apart. To be tasked with a job is to be assigned it. To be tasked with errors or negligence is to be accused of them.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- John Fletcher wrote The Island Princesse. en.wikipedia.org
- The quoted wording occurs in the play; Quisara speaks it to Ruy Dias. emed.folger.edu
- The quotation exemplifies task meaning to accuse or reproach someone for a fault. en.wiktionary.org
- 7To oppress someone with severe or excessive burdens; to strain or overtax their strength.
He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.
1851, Herman Melville, Moby-DickSimilarstrain, tax, burden, overtax
Note
The heavy end of the verb, where a task becomes a burden that wears a person down. In Moby-Dick (1851), Herman Melville writes "He tasks me; he heaps me," and the pairing with heaps makes the load feel physical. The verb now sounds largely literary. It sits very close to tax in its straining sense, which is unsurprising for a word that began as the obsolete name for a tax.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Moby-Dick was first published in 1851 and was written by Herman Melville. en.wikipedia.org
- The quotation occurs in Moby-Dick; it is dialogue spoken by Ahab. gutenberg.org
- 8A tax or charge imposed on someone.
Note
Older than the work it now names: task is a doublet of tax, and both go back to Latin taxō, "to charge". Task took its own road, through Medieval Latin tasca (an alteration of taxa) and Old Northern French tasque. In 1593, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw still asks "Art thou the Collector of the Kings taske?" This meaning is obsolete now; for a charge on income or goods, the word is tax.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Task is a doublet of tax. en.wiktionary.org
- Task and tax both derive ultimately from Latin taxō, glossed here as 'to charge'. en.wiktionary.org
- Task passed through Medieval Latin tasca, an alteration of taxa, and Old Northern French tasque. en.wiktionary.org
- The play contains the exact quoted question. en.wiktionary.org
- 9Alternative form of taisch.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Behind 'task' lies Latin taxō ('to censure; to charge'), which gave taxa; Medieval Latin altered that to tasca. Old Northern French had it as tasque (the Old French variant was tasche), and Middle English took it in as taske, meaning both 'task' and 'tax'. So 'task' and 'tax' are doublets.