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Labor or study imposed by another, often in a definite quantity or amount. Ma task of servile toil. Milton. Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close. Longfellow.

A wage paid by the day, or some fixed period, on condition that a minimum task be performed. When the workman is paid in proportion for excess over the minimum, the wage is one for piece-work.

One who imposes a task.

One who imposes a task, or burdens another with labor; one whose duty is to assign tasks; an overseer. Ex. i. 11. All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. Milton.

Work done as a task; also, work done by the job; piecework.

To take to task; to blame. Shak.

To task too heavily.

Act of wiping clean; a cleansing; a purging. The task of ablution and abstersion being performed. Sir W. Scott.

ne's skill or energies (to some object); to betake. These men addressed themselves to the task. Macaulay.

tinued pain or mental distress; to trouble grievously; to torment. They did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. Exod. i. 11. That which was the worst now least afflicts me. Milton.

abor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious; as, an arduous employment, task, or enterprise.

To set to work upon, as upon a task or problem, or some object of labor or investigation.

vals . . . has led the manufacturer to . . . attenuate his processes, in the allotment of tasks, to an extreme point. I. Taylor. We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagerness. Sir F. Palgrave.

nizant; conscious; as, he was aware of the enemy's designs. Aware of nothing arduous in a task They never undertook. Cowper.

Frustrating; discomfiting; disconcerting; as, baffling currents, winds, tasks. -- Bafflingly, adv. -- Bafflingness, n.

To overtake with night or darkness, especially before the end of a day's journey or task. Some virgin, sure, . . . benighted in these woods. Milton.

solution; to flinch; to quail. Blench not at thy chosen lot. Bryant. This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfillment. Jeffrey.

Work done by the day; a single job, or task; a chore. [Written also chare.] [Eng.] When thou hast done this chare, I give thee leave To play till doomsday. Shak.

To lay on or impose, as a task, duty, or trust; to command, instruct, or exhort with authority; to enjoin; to urge earnestly; as, to charge a jury; to charge the clergy of a diocese; to charge an agent. Moses . . . charged you to love the Lord your God. Josh. xxii. 5. Cromwell, I charge thee, fing away ambition. Shak.…

iency; to perfect; to consummate; to accomplish; to fulfill; to finish; as, to complete a task, or a poem; to complete a course of education. Bred only and completed to the taste Of lustful appetence. Milton. And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate. Pope.