task

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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɑːsk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /tæsk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -æsk

task (plural tasks)

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. An objective.
4. (computing) A process or execution of a program.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• 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.

• (piece of work): chore, job
• (difficult undertaking): undertaking
• (objective): objective, goal
• (process): process

task (third-person singular simple present tasks, present participle tasking, simple 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, 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.

2. (transitive) To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax.
3. (transitive) To charge, as with a fault.
   • Beaumont and Fletcher

     Too impudent to task me with those errors.

• AKST, Kast, askt, kast, kats, skat