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Dispense vs Assign - What's the difference?

dispense | assign | Related terms |

In obsolete terms the difference between dispense and assign

is that dispense is the act of dispensing, dispensation while assign is a thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.

dispense

English

Verb

  • To issue, distribute, or put out.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company.
  • * 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber and Faber 2005, p.40:
  • The smoky spray seemed to trap whatever light there was and to dispense it subtly.
  • To apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct.
  • to dispense justice
  • * Dryden
  • While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.
  • To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.
  • The pharmacist dispensed my tablets.
    An optician can dispense spectacles.
  • To eliminate or do without; used intransitively with with .
  • I wish he would dispense with the pleasantries and get to the point.
  • (obsolete) To give a dispensation to (someone); to excuse.
  • * , II.34:
  • After his victories, he often gave them the reines to all licenciousnesse, for a while dispencing them from all rules of military discipline.
  • * Macaulay
  • It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions, should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance.
  • * Johnson
  • He appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.
  • (obsolete) To compensate; to make up; to make amends.
  • * Spenser
  • One loving hour / For many years of sorrow can dispense .
  • * Gower
  • His sin was dispensed / With gold, whereof it was compensed.

    Derived terms

    * dispensary * dispenser

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Cost, expenditure.
  • (obsolete) The act of dispensing, dispensation.
  • * , II.xii:
  • what euer in this worldly state / Is sweet, and pleasing vnto liuing sense, / Or that may dayntiest fantasie aggrate, / Was poured forth with plentifull dispence [...].

    assign

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb) To designate or set apart something for some purpose.
  • :
  • (lb) To appoint or select someone for some office.
  • :
  • (lb) To allot or give something as a task.
  • *(Robert Southey) (1774-1843)
  • *:The man who could feel thus was worthy of a better station than that in which his lot had been assigned .
  • * (1796-1859)
  • *:He assigned to his men their several posts.
  • *
  • *:Captain Edward Carlisle; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
  • (lb) To attribute or sort something into categories.
  • To transfer property, a legal right, etc., from one person to another.
  • To give (a value) to a variable.
  • :
  • Derived terms

    * assignment * assignable * assignation

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An assignee.
  • (obsolete) A thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns , as girdles, hangers, and so.
    English transitive verbs