Learn English – What’s the meaning of “entasked with”

meaningmeaning-in-contextphrase-meaning

Google, like all search companies, is entasked with providing an easy way to access information that’s important to people.

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What is the meaning of entasked / entasked with?

Is entasked with an obsolete phrase?

Best Answer

It's an innovation. There are no results between 1800-2000 in Google Books Ngram Viewer, and there are likewise no results between 1810 and 2009 in the Corpus of Historical American English. The OED does have a brief entry for entask which says simply "see en- prefix", but since the word essentially does not exist in modern English, it's likely that this new use has been independently re-derived in the same fashion.

It clearly means "to be given a task":

Google is entasked with providing an easy way. . . .
Google has been given the task of providing an easy way. . . .

Personally, I don't think this qualifies as a standard derivation, and I'd suggest that learners of English avoid this word, as others may share my judgment. It sounds hokey.

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