Dictionary

ascertainment en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˌæsɚˈteɪnmənt/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /əˈsɜːtənmənt/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Etymology tree English ascertain Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom Proto-Italic *-mentom Latin -mentum Old French -mentbor. Middle English -ment English -ment English ascertainment From ascertain + -ment.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The act of ascertaining.
   • […] what we ought to aim at is less the ascertainment of resemblances and differences than the recognition of likenesses hidden under apparent divergences. 1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, chapter 22, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN, part 3, page 266:
   • […] does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Volume 2, Book 4, Chapter 1, p. 151:
   • the ascertainment of facts
   • […] Mr. Pope himself appears to me […] now and then to have imagin’d Proprieties, or cover’d Defects with a seeming View rather to the Honour of his Author at all Events, than to the precise Ascertainment of Truth. 1758, William Hawkins, Tracts in Divinity, volume 2, Oxford, page 321:
   • You have a great Worke to doe, to restore Religion and Law, upon which depends the Kings re-enthronement, and re-investure with his just rights, the Parliaments ascertainment of their just power and equall Priviledges, and the peoples restorement to their known Liberties and Properties […] 1647, anonymous author, A Letter Really Written by a Moderate Cavallier to an Intelligent and Moderate Independent of Trust and Credit in the Now Marching Army, London, page 6:
   • The ascertainment of death takes place in the chapel, rather than in the room where he died, and his body is immediately placed inside the coffin. 2025 April 21, Devin Watkins, “Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday aged 88”, in Vatican News:
   • […] I judged it proper that there should be an exact ascertainment of my legal rights by the decree of a court of justice, 1819, Walter Scott, chapter 1, in The Bride of Lammermoor, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, page 15:

Forms

Deriveds

misascertainment · underascertainment

Translations (3)

fr constatation (Translations) · uk встано́влення (Translations) · uk з'ясува́ння (Translations)