The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Assignment \As*sign"ment\, n. [LL. assignamentum: cf. OF.
   assenement.]
   1. An allotting or an appointment to a particular person or
      use; or for a particular time, as of a cause or causes in
      court.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Law)
      (a) A transfer of title or interest by writing, as of
          lease, bond, note, or bill of exchange; a transfer of
          the whole of some particular estate or interest in
          lands.
      (b) The writing by which an interest is transferred.
      (c) The transfer of the property of a bankrupt to certain
          persons called assignees, in whom it is vested for the
          benefit of creditors.
          [1913 Webster]

   Assignment of dower, the setting out by metes and bounds of
      the widow's thirds or portion in the deceased husband's
      estate, and allotting it to her.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: Assignment is also used in law as convertible with
         specification; assignment of error in proceedings for
         review being specification of error; and assignment of
         perjury or fraud in indictment being specifications of
         perjury or fraud.
         [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

assignment
    n 1: a duty that you are assigned to perform (especially in the
         armed forces); "hazardous duty" [syn: assignment, duty
         assignment]
    2: the instrument by which a claim or right or interest or
       property is transferred from one person to another
    3: the act of distributing something to designated places or
       persons; "the first task is the assignment of an address to
       each datum" [syn: assignment, assigning]
    4: (law) a transfer of property by deed of conveyance [syn:
       grant, assignment]
    5: an undertaking that you have been assigned to do (as by an
       instructor)
    6: the act of putting a person into a non-elective position;
       "the appointment had to be approved by the whole committee"
       [syn: appointment, assignment, designation, naming]

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 January 2023):

assignment

    Storing the value of an expression in a
   variable.  This is commonly written in the form "v = e".  In
   Algol the assignment operator was ":=" (pronounced
   "becomes") to avoid mathematicians qualms about writing
   statements like x = x+1.

   Assignment is not allowed in functional languages, where an
   identifier always has the same value.

   See also referential transparency, single assignment,
   zero assignment.

   (1996-08-19)