assent

From Middle English assent (noun) and assenten (verb), from Old French assent (noun) and assentir (verb), from Latin assentiō.

• Audio (Northern California):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /əˈsɛnt/
• Rhymes: -ɛnt
• Homophone: ascent

assent (third-person singular simple present assents, present participle assenting, simple past and past participle assented)

1. (intransitive) To agree to a proposal.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 7, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The princess assented to all that was suggested.

   • 2012, Spectral Mortuary, Lapidated:

     To assent to the words
     Of medieval law
     To pay a corporal price
     To death, by lapidation

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 24:9:

     And the Jews also assented, saying that these things were so.

• (give approval): consent; See also Thesaurus:assent
• (admit a thing as true): affirm, allow, astipulate, aver, soothe, stipulate

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

assent (countable and uncountable, plural assents)

1. agreement; act of agreeing

   I will give this act my assent.

   • 1960 January, “Talking of Trains: N.& W.-Virginian merger”, in Trains Illustrated, page 9:

     A number of other mergers of U.S. railroads are mooted, but the I.C.C. [Interstate Commerce Commission] has made it clear that its assent to the N.& W.-Virginian proposal, which was unopposed by competitors or stockholders, should not be taken as an indication that others will swiftly pass its scrutiny.

   • 2014, Ian McEwan, The Children Act, Penguin Random House (2018), page 128:

     He lowered his head in assent.

2. (countable, property law) A legal instrument that conveys real estate to an heir under the terms of a will.

• approval, consent, sanction; See also Thesaurus:approval

• assentor

• antses, sanest, snaste, stanes, steans

assent

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of assō