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Refer vs Assign - What's the difference?

refer | assign |

As verbs the difference between refer and assign

is that refer is to direct the attention of while assign is (lb) to designate or set apart something for some purpose.

As a noun assign is

an assignee.

refer

English

Verb

(referr)
  • To direct the attention of.
  • The shop assistant referred me to the help desk on ground floor.
  • To submit to (another person or group) for consideration; to send or direct elsewhere.
  • He referred the matter to the principal.
    to refer a patient to a psychiatrist
  • To place in or under by a mental or rational process; to assign to, as a class, a cause, source, a motive, reason, or ground of explanation.
  • He referred the phenomena to electrical disturbances.
  • (rfex) To allude to, make a reference or allusion to.
  • # (grammar) to be referential to another element in a sentence
  • #:
  • Synonyms

    * delegate * direct

    Derived terms

    * refer to * refer someone to

    Anagrams

    * English palindromes ----

    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