Choose the Right Synonym for assent

Verb

assent, consent, accede, acquiesce, agree, subscribe mean to concur with what has been proposed. assent implies an act involving the understanding or judgment and applies to propositions or opinions. voters assented to the proposal consent involves the will or feelings and indicates compliance with what is requested or desired. consented to their daughter's going accede implies a yielding, often under pressure, of assent or consent. officials acceded to the prisoners' demands acquiesce implies tacit acceptance or forbearance of opposition. acquiesced to his boss's wishes agree sometimes implies previous difference of opinion or attempts at persuasion. finally agreed to come along subscribe implies not only consent or assent but hearty approval and active support. subscribes wholeheartedly to the idea

Examples of assent in a Sentence

Verb One day I arrived at class to discuss some abolition treaties written during the early Romantic period. An African American woman, Stephanie, was introduced to me by one of my students. Stephanie asked if she could sit in on the class, and I of course assented. — Laura Mandell, Profession, 1997 Christopher, on his end, is supposed to have assented to and even welcomed this public confirmation of his own negligibility, not that foreign diplomats needed any. — Tom Carson, Village Voice, 19 July 1994 Fearing that without a new batch of social measures the country would slip away from him, Roosevelt assented—sometimes rather grudgingly—to proposals that in sum make up the semi-welfare state under which we have lived this past half century. — Irving Howe, New York Times Book Review, 28 Sept.1986 The general proposed a detailed plan and the President assented. are we to conclude from your silence that you assent? Noun Cornel West of Harvard introduced Bradley as "my brother, my comrade." Then Bradley, donning drugstore reading glasses, standing motionless at the podium, took the air out of the cavernous hall with a lecture on the history of racism and the complexity of ethnic subcultures. He got nods of knowing assent, but he could have had a standing O. — Howard Fineman, Newsweek, 19 July 1999 Appointments at top universities often required the recommendation and assent of experts from other fields; insofar as deans, provosts, and other administrators came from economics and the hard sciences, many of them recognized rational choice as something close to their own ideals of legitimate scientific research. — Jonathan Cohn, New Republic, 25 Oct. 1999 From The Second Sex to In a Different Voice, I could read and appreciate the analysis or the argument without feeling personally very involved. I could, and did, argue for feminism because I believed in much of what feminist writers were saying about gender equality, but my assent came from my head, not my heart. I knew that as an audience for feminist writers I was a pretty tertiary concern. — Robert J. Connors, College English, February 1996 Once filming began, sequences that had been axed for budgetary reasons were put back—with the studio's tacit assent. — Charles Fleming, Vanity Fair, August 1995 See More

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb In its view, pushing a button manifests assent only if the user is explicitly advised that doing so manifests consent to the terms. — Jack Greiner, The Enquirer, 3 May 2022 On April 27, the bear to Bulgaria’s northeast dealt the Balkan country of 7 million people a harsh blow, cutting the natural gas that supplies roughly half of its heating fuel for refusing to assent to the Kremlin’s new demand for payment in rubles. — Jordan Mcgillis, National Review, 2 May 2022 The roadblock to even more spending was Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), whose steadfast refusal to assent to the budget-reconciliation bill ended up killing it. — Dominic Pino, National Review, 28 Mar. 2022 The country’s attorney general — a Bolsonaro ally — needs to assent to a trial of the president in court. — Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2021 Germany and other northern European deficit hawks also assented to the temporary lifting of limits on spending in the European Union. — Peter S. Goodman, New York Times, 26 Mar. 2020 Women in former eras were downtrodden and frequently assented to it. — The Economist, 29 Aug. 2019 The government has also resorted to constitutional chicanery, exploiting the fact that Kashmir’s state legislature—which would normally have to assent to such changes—was dissolved over a year ago. — The Economist, 9 Aug. 2019 Bolton had also strongly resisted a proposal from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to which Trump had initially assented, to invite Iran’s foreign minister to Washington last month, the officials said. — Washington Post, 12 Sep. 2019 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The formation of a valid contract requires two things –reasonably conspicuous notice of the contract’s terms and some action by the consumer unambiguously manifesting assent to the terms. — Jack Greiner, The Enquirer, 3 May 2022 Chimaev’s assent in the UFC came largely out of nowhere. — Mike Bohn, Rolling Stone, 5 Apr. 2022 Each man’s assent to a radical life had profound consequences for history. — Andrew Doran, National Review, 3 Mar. 2022 Whereas a loyalty oath compels assent to authority, a DEI statement demands active ideological engagement. — Lawrence Krauss, WSJ, 20 Oct. 2021 The Presidential Records Act lays out a process allowing a president to dispose of records only after obtaining the assent of records officials. — Anchorage Daily News, 6 Feb. 2022 It was ultimately passed by the Senate last June and progressed to the next step, presidential assent, for final approval. — Sophia Saifi, CNN, 24 Feb. 2022 The Presidential Records Act lays out a process allowing a president to dispose of records only after obtaining the assent of records officials. — Anchorage Daily News, 6 Feb. 2022 Using their respective daughters as pawns, Mrs. Russell secured not only Astor's grudging assent to attend her lavish ball, but got her to arm-twist those within her social circle to join in as well. — Brian Lowry, CNN, 21 Mar. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'assent.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.