SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
ascription
noun
The act of attributing a quality, cause, or responsibility to a particular source.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Attribution to a source
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topImputation often has a negative implication; ascription is neutral about the quality assigned.
RELATED FORMS, ONE FEATURED ENTRY
The ascribe family
ascription is grouped under ascribe in the main dictionaries. This form keeps its meaning and previous study record.
ascribeverb
To regard something as caused by, belonging to, or created by a particular source.
Attribute to a source
Closest synonyms
Related expressions
The curator would not ascribe the unsigned drawing to an artist without evidence.
A campus print team noticed that one poster had emerged with a narrow stripe. Their first hypothesis was that the uploaded image contained the stripe, but the original file looked clean. The result was anomalous because the other posters from the same session had no such mark. Rather than immediately ascribe the problem to the designer, Nia asked the team to compare the files, settings, and order of printing, keeping several possible explanations open until the records could distinguish them.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See ascription in use
The historian questioned the ascription of the anonymous essay to a famous novelist.
The organizer's ascription of the project's success entirely to luck also ignored the group's months of careful preparation.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license