Other forms: assessed, assessing, assesses
To assess is to weigh up the size, value or quality of something carefully. Assess the damage, assess the risk, assess a pupil.
It implies judgement after examination rather than a glance: assessing damage, assessing needs, assessing risk. In education, assessment is the whole apparatus of measuring what has been learned. In tax and insurance it means to fix an amount payable. Note assessor, which is a formal role in insurance and in some courts; and reassess, which is what happens when the first assessment was wrong.
1verbassessTo weigh up the size, value or quality of something.
“An expert came to assess the value of the old paintings before the sale.”
assess is an act of judging.
Also accepted in games: evaluate
Medieval Latin assessare comes from assidere, to sit beside — the assessor sat beside the judge to fix the tax. Assiduous, session and preside come from the same sitting.
Proto-Indo-European
*sed-
Medieval Latin
assessare
Old French
assesser
Middle English
assessen
English, today
assess
Built from
From Middle English assessen, from Old French assesser, from Medieval Latin assessare, from assessus. From Middle English assessen, from Old French assesser, from Medieval Latin assessare, originally the frequentative of Latin assessus, past participle of assideo, from ad (“to, towards, at”) + sedeō (“sit; settle down”). Cognate with Spanish asentar (“to settle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA