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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > ASCRIBE

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pronounce ASCRIBE:

uh SCRIBE
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connect this word to others:

In Latin, scribere means "to write or draw," and I bet you can name lots of English words that derive from it.

Like scribe, script, describe, prescribe, subscribe, and scribble. And ascribe, the word we're checking out today!

See if you can recall two more related words:

1. To c_r___scribe something is to limit it in a narrow way, as if you're drawing a tight, strict circle around it.

2. Something n__d_script is hard to describe (or impossible to describe) because it's not interesting, because it's hard to put it in a category, or because it doesn't have any easy-to-notice features.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Ascribe" is a formal word that we've used in English since the 1600s. It traces back through French to Latin. If you pluck it apart into a- ("to or toward") and scribe (to write), you can see how it literally means "(to) write to."

If you ascribe a thing to a person, you say that thing came from that person, or you give that person the blame or credit for it. Either way, you're making that statement in an official way, as if you're writing everything down to make a historical record of it.

You might ascribe a quote to an author, or ascribe a problem to the person who started it, or ascribe a success to the person responsible for it.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "Eyeliner wings: I only get them right about ten percent of the time, so I ascribe any success to pure luck." "The rains stopped briefly, which they ascribed to God for some reason."

Other forms: 

The other verb forms are "ascribed" and "ascribing."

The noun is "ascription," and it can be both countable ("These are valid ascriptions") and uncountable ("That's an act of valid ascription").

We've also got an adjective, "ascribable," as in "My symptoms eased up, a benefit ascribable to the new medicine."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, common, serious word "ascribe" when you want to sound somewhat neutral (rather than excited or angry) as you talk about causes and effects.

Talk about people ascribing things to people, or to other things, or to certain places or times.

What kinds of things get ascribed? Often it's events, successes, and failures, as in "She ascribes the team's win to their consistent hard work." It can also be worth, values, meanings, qualities, feelings, powers, or characteristics, as in "He ascribes a spiritual meaning to each penny he finds on the ground."

examples:

"Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them."
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, 2015

"Although [Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., a dream researcher at Harvard University] strays away from ascribing universal meaning to dreams and encourages dreamers to interpret their dreams for themselves, Salon asked her to unpack what's going on with five commonly reported nightmares." 
— Elizabeth Hlavinka, Salon, 24 October 2023

has this page helped you understand "ascribe"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "ascribe" without saying "blame" or "credit."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "Many people automatically ascribe (some quality) to (some particular type of food, music, literature, or other thing)."

Example 1: "Many people automatically ascribe predictable lyrics and timeworn chord progressions to pop music. But pop artists are always breaking new ground."

Example 2: "[Many people] automatically ascribe rich, heavy, butter-and-cream dense flavors to French food."
— Michael La Corte, The Verge, 22 May 2024




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is "The Tip of the Tongue!" 

You know how sometimes you'll be reaching for a perfect word, and it's right there at the tip of your tongue, where you can almost taste it? Somehow that word is caught in the liminal space between your memory and your mouth. This month, let's play with that experience, and practice resolving it to our satisfaction.

I'll give you a short quote from Chris Palmer's heartfelt and eye-opening new book, Achieving a Good Death: A Practical Guide to the End of Life, along with a blank where Chris has deployed a truly perfect word. To help bring that word to the tip of your tongue, I'll describe it both physically and semantically. 

Try this one today:

"An interest in death means, in part, doing everything we can to avoid protracted suffering and deterioration as we approach the end of our lives. That is the _____ of rationality and common sense."

The word is 4 syllables long, and it has a letter T in the middle.

The word means "perfect example, or perfect embodiment."

To reveal the right word, scroll to the bottom of the issue.

review this word:

1. A near opposite of ASCRIBE is

A. DRAW.
B. DISTILL.
C. DISSOCIATE.

2. A character in Nicola Yoon's book The Sun is Also a Star says, "Life is just a series of dumb decisions and indecisions and coincidences that we choose to ascribe _____."

A. with hope
B. meaning to
C. tolerance for




Answers to the review questions:
1. C
2. B

Answer to the game question:

"An interest in death means, in part, doing everything we can to avoid protracted suffering and deterioration as we approach the end of our lives. That is the epitome of rationality and common sense."


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
On vocabulary...
      36 ways to study words.
      Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
      How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
      How to improve any sentence.
      How to motivate our kids to write.
      How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
      How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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