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Situation vs Assignment - What's the difference?

situation | assignment | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between situation and assignment

is that situation is the way in which something is positioned vis-à-vis its surroundings while assignment is the act of assigning; the allocation of a job or a set of tasks.

situation

English

Alternative forms

* scituation

Noun

(en noun)
  • The way in which something is positioned vis-à-vis its surroundings.
  • * 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows) :
    • ...he being naturally an underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger's house exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who slept every night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy river, naturally felt the atmosphere still and oppressive.
  • The place in which something is situated; a location.
  • * 1833 , Thomas Hibbert and Robert Buist, The American Flower Garden Directory , page 142:
    • [Hibíscus] speciòsus is the most splendid, and deserves a situation in every garden.
  • Position or status with regard to conditions and circumstances.
  • The combination of circumstances at a given moment; a state of affairs.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.}}
  • (UK, dated) A position of employment; a post.
  • * 1913 , , (Sons and Lovers) , Penguin 2006, page 78:
    • When he was nineteen, he suddenly left the 'Co-op' office, and got a situation in Nottingham.
  • * 1946 , Vaughn Horton, Denver Darling, Milt Gabler, :
    • You take a morning paper from the top of the stack
    And read the situations from the front to the back
    The only job that's open need a man with a knack
    So put it right back in the rack Jack.
  • A difficult or unpleasant set of circumstances; a problem.
    • Boss, we've got a situation here...

    Synonyms

    * (combination of circumstances) condition, set up

    Related terms

    * site * situate * situated * situationism

    See also

    * situation comedy, sitcom

    References

    * Source for the definitions: ** Dictionary.com. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/situation] (accessed: March 10, 2007). * * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    assignment

    English

    (wikipedia assignment)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of assigning; the allocation of a job or a set of tasks.
    • This flow chart represents the assignment of tasks in our committee.
  • The categorization of something as belonging to a specific category.
    • We should not condone the assignment of asylum seekers to that of people smugglers.
  • An assigned task.
    • The assignment the department gave him proved to be quite challenging.
  • A position to which someone is assigned.
    • Unbeknownst to Mr Smith, his new assignment was in fact a demotion.
  • (education) A task given to students, such as homework or coursework.
    • Mrs Smith gave out our assignments , and said we had to finish them by Monday.
  • (legal) A transfer of something from one person to another, especially property, or a claim or right.
    • The assignment of the lease has not been finalised yet.
  • (legal) A document that effects this transfer.
    • Once you receive the assignment in the post, be sure to sign it and send it back as soon as possible.
  • (computing) An operation that assigns a value to a variable.