Assets

How to spell assets

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce assets

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assets mean?

1. nounItems of property or resources owned by a person or organisation that have monetary value.

Assets in a sentence

• The company sold off several assets to cover its debts.

• Their financial assets include savings, shares, and a rental property.

Where does assets come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the Anglo-French legal term asetz, meaning 'enough' or 'sufficient', which itself came from the Old French assez and ultimately from the Latin phrase ad satis, literally 'to sufficiency'. In medieval law, an executor was said to have asetz when the deceased had left enough property to settle every debt and legacy, so the term meant having sufficient means to pay what was owed. Because that legal word ended in an s sound, English speakers wrongly took it to be a plural, and the singular 'asset' was later carved out of it by back-formation, which is why the everyday singular feels younger than the plural. From the narrow legal sense of 'property available to meet liabilities', the meaning broadened by the nineteenth century to any valuable resource, whether money, equipment, or even a useful person. The buried link to Latin satis, 'enough', still survives in relatives such as 'satisfy' and 'satiate'.

How the word is built

• asset (from Anglo-French asetz: enough)
• -s (plural)