task
See also: Task
English
Etymology
From Middle English task, taske, from Old Northern French tasque, (compare Old French variant tasche), from Medieval Latin tasca, alteration of taxa, from Latin taxāre (“censure; charge”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /tɑːsk/
- (US) IPA(key): /tæsk/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -æsk
Noun
task (plural tasks)
- A piece of work done as part of one’s duties.
- 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.
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- A difficult or tedious undertaking.
- 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.
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- An objective.
- (computing) A process or execution of a program.
- (Can we add an example for this sense?)
Usage notes
- 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.
Synonyms
Derived terms
- multitasking
- subtask
- take to task
- taskable
- taskbar
- taskbody
- task force
- tasklet
- taskmaster
- task-oriented
Translations
piece of work done as part of one’s duties
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difficult or tedious undertaking
objective
process or execution of a program
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb
task (third-person singular simple present tasks, present participle tasking, simple past and past participle tasked)
- (transitive) To assign a task to, or impose a task on.
- On my first day in the office, I was tasked with sorting a pile of invoices.
- 1610, Shakespeare, The Tempest, act 1 scene 2:
- 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.
- Dryden
- There task thy maids, and exercise the loom.
- (transitive) To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax.
- (transitive) To charge, as with a fault.
- Beaumont and Fletcher
- Too impudent to task me with those errors.
- Beaumont and Fletcher
Translations
assign a task to
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