Ascribe Meaning
/əˈskɹaɪb/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo attribute (a cause or characteristic) to someone or something.
verbTo regard as arising from a specified cause or source.
Sentence Examples
Some scholars ascribe the settlement of America to social unrest in Western Europe.
We ascribe his success to hard work.
Most stereotypes ascribe negative characteristics to a group.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Historians often ____ the fall of the empire to internal corruption and weak leadership.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Most historians will ____ the poem to the famous writer of that age.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English ascriben, from Old French ascrivre (“inscribe, attribute, impute”), from Latin āscrībere (“to state in writing”), equivalent to a- + scribe.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Thus the Aſſe having a peculiar mark of a croſſe made by a black liſt down his back, and another athwart, or at right angles down his ſhoulders; common opinion aſcribes this figure unto a peculiar ſignation; ſince that beaſt had the honour to bear our Saviour on his back."
— 1650, Thomas Browne, “Of the Same [i.e., the Blacknesse of Negroes]”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 6th book, page 282:
"Difficult running was ascribed by the driver to inferior coal, alleged to be Polish."
— 1950 September, “Notes and News: Italian Fuel Difficulties”, in Railway Magazine, page 639:
"SCP-3125 incarnated the following winter.
Its first act upon its arrival — or, depending on the degree of intelligent agency you ascribed to it, the first side-effect of its arrival — was the neutralisation of the Foundation."
— 2019 August 26, qntm, “Unthreaded”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 161:
"[…]and two enormous Scottish poems, the Buik of Alexander, which has been improbably ascribed to Barbour, and Sir Gilbert Hay's Buik of Alexander the Conquerour; one nearly complete Prose Life of Alexander and fragments of four others; a stanzaic translation of the Fuerres de Gadres which survives only in a fragment, the Romance of Cassamus, and three separate translations of the Secreta Secretorum."
— 2012, William Matthews, The Tragedy of Arthur, University of California Press, page 68:
"A survey of the literature reveals that many who have commented on the signaling of animals ascribe to the view that all of their communicative signals are manifestations of emotion or affect."
— 1997, James A. Russell, José Miguel Fernández-Dols, The Psychology of Facial Expression, →ISBN, page 133:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Historians often ____ the fall of the empire to internal corruption and weak leadership.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Most historians will ____ the poem to the famous writer of that age.