How to spell assign

hear itas·sign/ə'saɪn/verbSilent and tricky

What it means: To give a task or responsibility to someone.

In a sentence: The teacher will assign each student a fun project.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double s, and a silent g, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as asign or asssign.

Same family: assignment, assigned, reassign, designate, allocate. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Assign” comes from Latin *assignare*, meaning “to mark out” or “to allot by a sign,” from *ad-* (“to”) + *signum* (“mark, sign”). It’s related to words like “design,” “signature,” and “signal,” which also come from the idea of making a mark or sign.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa) · Silent letters

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

gnaw · foreign · significant · resign · align · cologne · sign · campaign

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