MEANING
1. State that something is true with confidence, without necessarily providing proof.
2. Act to make a right, authority, or personal confidence recognized by others.
Use it for
identifying what an author claims; distinguishing a stated position from demonstrated evidence; describing a claim made forcefullyDistinguishes a confidently stated claim from an established conclusion and from exercising authority. Academic functions: Argumentation, Evidence.
Words that belong together
- assert that
- assert a claim
- assert the existence of
On the page
The author asserts that the reform caused the improvement, but the design cannot exclude competing explanations.
The critic distinguishes what the narrator asserts from what the surrounding events allow the reader to infer.
The court asserted its authority to review the procedure without deciding the policy’s merits.
The interview analysis examines how participants assert themselves when speaking with senior staff.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- assert
- Past tense
- asserted
- Past participle
- asserted
- Present participle
- asserting
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- assert
- Present continuous
- am/is/are asserting
- Present perfect
- have/has asserted
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been asserting
- Past
- asserted
- Past continuous
- was/were asserting
- Past perfect
- had asserted
- Past perfect continuous
- had been asserting
- Future
- will assert
- Future continuous
- will be asserting
- Future perfect
- will have asserted
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been asserting
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Transitive verb; also assert oneself. Base assert; third-person asserts; past and past participle asserted; present participle asserting. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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