Word
ascribe
Phoneticsas·cribe
US/əsˈkɹaɪb/
UK/ɐskɹˈaɪb/
Definition
v. to say that a quality, a cause, or a responsibility belongs to someone or something. You use this when you want to explain why something happened or who is responsible for it.
v. to attribute a quality, cause, or responsibility to a person or thing. Transitive — requires a direct object and often takes a prepositional phrase to indicate the source of the quality.
Examples
“Many people ascribe the success of the team to the coach.”
“The researchers ascribe the sudden drop in sales to the recent economic downturn rather than poor marketing.”
“While some critics ascribe the author's later works to a decline in mental health, others argue that the shift in style reflects a deliberate artistic evolution.”
Examples
simple
“Many people ascribe the success of the team to the coach.”
contextual
“The researchers ascribe the sudden drop in sales to the recent economic downturn rather than poor marketing.”
complex
“While some critics ascribe the author's later works to a decline in mental health, others argue that the shift in style reflects a deliberate artistic evolution.”
Real-World Examples
“I have lost count of the number of times students gawk at examples of scientists from history who were spiritual, not secular, without ascribing a value judgment to their belief systems.” Etymology
From Middle English ascriben, from Old French ascrivre (“inscribe, attribute, impute”), from Latin āscrībere (“to state in writing”), equivalent to a- + scribe.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/ascribe