Appoints

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Designates someone to a specific job or role by authority
2. Selects and gives an official position or task to a person
3. Chooses a person to fill a particular office or responsibility

Etymology: "Appoints" is the third-person singular form of "appoint", so the story belongs to the verb itself. It came into Middle English as "apointen", borrowed from Old French "apointier", which meant to prepare, arrange, or place something. Those senses carry the core idea: putting things into their proper position. The Old French word grew from Late Latin "appunctare", "to bring back to the point", a phrase with a legal and argumentative flavour. It meant to settle a dispute or fix the points of an agreement, so a matter was brought to a decision. The Latin root is "punctum", "a point", the same source that gives English "point" and "puncture". Over time the sense of arranging things settled into fixing a person in a position. To appoint someone is to put them exactly where a role requires, which is why the word now means choosing someone for an office.

Synonyms: designates, assigns, nominates, selects, delegates

Antonyms: removes, dismisses, discharges, deposes, unappoints