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task

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Task

English

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English taske (“task, tax”), from Old Northern French tasque, (compare Old French variant tasche), from Medieval Latin tasca, alteration of taxa, from Latin taxō (“to censure; to charge”). Doublet of tax.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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task (plural tasks)

  1. (countable) A piece of work done as part of one’s duties.
    Hypernym: roster
    Synonyms: assignment, chore, job
    Hyponym: microtask
    daily task, monotonous task, regular task, parental task
    The employee refused to complete the assignment, arguing that it was not one of the tasks listed in her job description.
    1. (uncountable) A state of diligence in work on a task.
      I put him to task on the chores.
    2. (countable) Any piece of work done.
      carry out a task
      complete a task
      • 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:
        Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.
    3. (countable) A single action undertaken by a given agent.
      Each member of the team completed tasks in service of the goal.
    4. (countable) A difficult or tedious undertaking; a substantial project.
      Getting him to change his behavior will be quite a task for you.
      I'm currently working on the task she gave me, alphabetizing all of those print files.
      Solving the economy is an enormous task for the ministry.
      • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
        As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
    5. (countable) An objective or duty.
      Synonyms: goal, objective, see: Thesaurus:goal
      Your task is the elimination of the termites.
    6. (countable, computing) A process or execution of a program.
      The user killed the frozen task.
      Synonym: process
  2. (uncountable) State of being subject to reprimands.
    call to task, take to task
    Near-synonym: hot seat
    I will put him to task for what he's done.
    Can she hold us to task for that?
    I hope somebody has brought him to task by now.
  3. (countable, obsolete) A tax or charge.
    Synonym: levy
Derived terms
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Collocations
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Collocations
  • Adjectives often applied to "task": difficult, easy, simple, hard, tough, complex, not-so-easy, challenging, complicated, tricky, formidable, arduous, laborious, onerous, small, big, huge, enormous, tremendous, gigantic, mammoth, colossal, gargantuan, social, intellectual, theological, important, basic, trivial, unpleasant, demanding, pleasant, noble, painful, grim, responsible, rewarding, boring, ungrateful, delightful, glorious, agreeable, thankless.
Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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task (third-person singular simple present tasks, present participle tasking, simple past and past participle tasked)

  1. (transitive) To assign a task to; to impose a task on.
    On my first day in the office, I was tasked with sorting a pile of invoices.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
      All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come / To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, / To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride / On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task / Ariel and all his quality.
    • a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The Last Parting of Hector and Andromache. From the Sixth Book of the Iliad.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC:
      There task thy maids, and exercise the loom.
    • 2021 May 19, “Network News: HS2 unearths 900 years of history in Buckinghamshire”, in RAIL, number 931, page 23:
      By 1966 the building was considered so unsafe that the Royal Engineers were tasked with demolishing it.
  2. (transitive) To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax
    1. (obsolete, transitive) To institute a tax on.
      Synonyms: levy, tax
  3. (transitive) To charge, as with a fault.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Noun

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task

  1. Alternative form of taisch.

Anagrams

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Swedish

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Noun

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task c

  1. (colloquial) a dick (penis)

Declension

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Declension of task
nominative genitive
singular indefinite task tasks
definite tasken taskens
plural indefinite taskar taskars
definite taskarna taskarnas

See also

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References

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