Etymology 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.
The employee refused to complete the assignment, arguing that it was not one of the tasks listed in her job description.
2
Any piece of work done.
carry out a task
complete a task
1 more example
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.2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:
3
A single action undertaken by a given agent.
[T]here is a well-defined run in which the stages of Atalanta’s run are punctuated by finite rests, arguably showing the possibility of completing an infinite series of finite tasks in a finite time2002 April 30, “Zeno’s Paradoxes”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
4
A difficult or tedious undertaking.
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.2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
Art thou the Collector of the Kings taske? […] Thou haſt thy taske money for all that be heere, […]1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I:
Etymology 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.
1
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.
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.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]:
2 more examples
There task thy maids, and exercise the loom.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:
By 1966 the building was considered so unsafe that the Royal Engineers were tasked with demolishing it.2021 May 19, “Network News: HS2 unearths 900 years of history in Buckinghamshire”, in RAIL, number 931, page 23:
2
To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax
He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 36, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
3
To charge, as with a fault.
Too impudent to task me with those errors.c. 1619–1621, John Fletcher, “The Island Princesse”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act III, scene iii: