Assigned

How to spell assigned

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce assigned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assigned mean?

1. verbAllotted a task, duty, role, or resource to a particular person or purpose.

Assigned in a sentence

• The manager assigned the new project to her most experienced team.

• Each guest was assigned a numbered seat at the reception.

Where does assigned come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb assignare, which meant to mark out, allot, or apportion something to a person. It was built from the prefix ad-, meaning to or toward, joined to signare, meaning to mark, which itself came from signum, a mark or sign. English took the word through Old French assigner during the 1300s, originally in the legal sense of transferring a right or property to someone. The buried g in the -gn- cluster is the main spelling trap, and it survives precisely because of that Latin signum, the very same root that gives us sign, signal, and signature. Remembering that the silent g belongs to the family of sign helps fix why assigned is not spelled the way it sounds.

How the word is built

• as- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• sign (from signum: a mark)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)