Assess

How to spell assess

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce assess

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assess mean?

1. verbTo judge, estimate, or determine the value, quality, or significance of something.
2. verbTo set or calculate the amount of a tax, fine, or charge payable.

Assess in a sentence

• The engineer arrived to assess the structural damage after the storm.

• The council will assess each household for the new drainage levy.

• Managers meet each quarter to assess the performance of every team.

• The authority can assess a penalty when returns are filed late.

Where does assess come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English from the Latin verb assidere, which literally meant 'to sit beside someone', formed from ad meaning 'to' or 'towards' and sedere meaning 'to sit'. In Roman law a person who sat beside a judge to give advice was an assessor, and from that courtroom helper came the idea of someone who sets the value of property for taxation. Medieval Latin developed assessare, 'to fix the amount of a tax', and English picked the word up through Old French in the 1400s, first in the narrow sense of setting tax charges. Over time the meaning broadened from valuing property to judging or estimating the worth, size, or quality of almost anything. The same sedere root sits, fittingly, inside 'sediment', 'session', and 'reside', and the doubled s in the middle is what trips writers up, since only the second pair is doubled, not the first.

How the word is built

• as- (from ad-: to, towards)
• sess (from sedere: to sit) literally 'to sit beside'