responsibility.

1. A duty or obligation to perform, oversee or take care of something.

2. Causal or moral accountability for bringing about an outcome.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• assigned responsibility
• responsibility for oversight

On the page

Responsibility for oversight was assigned before the project began.

The committee retained responsibility even when another office performed the routine checks.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Singular responsibility; plural responsibilities. Also uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: responsibility analysis, evidence qualification, ethical distinction, institutional judgment. Disciplines: academic writing, ethics, legal-administrative reasoning. Commonness: moderately common.