• (RP) IPA: /tɑːsk/
  • (America) IPA: /tæsk/

task (plural tasks)

  1. A piece of work done as part of one’s duties.
  2. A difficult or tedious undertaking.
  3. An objective.
  4. (computing) A process or execution of a program.
    The user killed the frozen task.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

task (tasks, present participle tasking; past and past participle tasked)

  1. (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, William 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.
    • c. 1693-1696, John Dryden, Last parting of Hector and Andromache: From the Sixth Book of Homer's Iliads
      There task thy maids, and exercise the loom.
  2. (transitive) To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax.
  3. (transitive) To charge, as with a fault.
    • (Can we date this quote?), Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher, “The Island Princess”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, OCLC 3083972 ↗, Act 3, scene 3:
      Too impudent to task me with those errors.
  • German: Aufgabe
  • Portuguese: atarefar
  • Russian: поруча́ть
  • Spanish: atarear


  1. Alternative form of taisch#English|taisch

Offline English dictionary