as in attributing
to explain (something) as being the result of something else
ascribed their stunning military victory to good intelligence beforehand
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Recent Examples of ascribing
Poor luck plagued him, but ascribing all of this outing to misfortune is misguided.
—
Chandler Rome, New York Times, 7 Aug. 2025
Over subsequent decades, this credo would face challenges, including from New Deal–era progressives wary of rich men ascribing to charity what was properly the realm of the state and of McCarthyite conservatives targeting philanthropic foundations as part of anticommunist fearmongering.
—Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Affairs, 15 Jan. 2024
Chandler Rome, New York Times, 7 Aug. 2025
Over subsequent decades, this credo would face challenges, including from New Deal–era progressives wary of rich men ascribing to charity what was properly the realm of the state and of McCarthyite conservatives targeting philanthropic foundations as part of anticommunist fearmongering.
—Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Affairs, 15 Jan. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ascribing
attributing
Verb
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But with officials attributing nearly 90% of waterway pollution to encampments, the city also had to reduce the impacts from the unhoused population as part of its permit, which proved a costly endeavor last year.—
Devan Patel,
Mercury News,
26 Sep. 2025
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Cinema sometimes has to know how to give in to a cause, but another thing entirely is to impoverish cinema by attributing to documentary cinema a mere and strict role of denunciation.—
Rafa Sales Ross,
Variety,
25 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ascribing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ascribing. Accessed 5 Oct. 2025.
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