The Meaning of Assets: What It Is and How To Use It

Your writing, at its best

Compose bold, clear, mistake-free, writing with Grammarly's AI-powered writing assistant

Are you an asset to your workplace, team, or school? What does it mean if someone has many financial assets? We will start by defining the word asset in several different ways. 

Then, it will provide examples of how to use the word asset in a sentence, the history of the word asset, and more! Having a large vocabulary makes you a great asset

What Does Assets Mean?

According to Dictionary and Investopedia, the word assets has a couple of different definitions. First, the definition of assets in a generic sense is any useful or desirable quality or thing. These types of assets can be physical or figurative. 

The second definition of assets refers to financial assets. Here, an asset is a resource that has economic value. 

Intangible Assets vs. Tangible Assets

Tangible assets are pretty easy to understand. Tangible assets are physical items and can include anything from real estate to inventory. Intangible assets, on the other hand, are not physical. Instead, intangible assets are things like intellectual property and copyrights.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Assets

Short-term assets can also be known as current assets or liquid assets. These include things like cash, inventory, and other items that are considered short-term investments.

Non-current assets, also known as fixed assets or long-term assets, are those which have future economic benefits. This includes things like equipment or property.

How Can We Use Assets in a Sentence?

You can use the word asset in numerous ways in your daily life. Sometimes, you might be referring to financial assets, while other times, you might use the word asset in a more generic way. 

Look at the below examples of assets and see if you can determine the word asset’s context.

The company’s current assets were in a bout of depreciation, and its cash equivalents were far less than when the company began.

The business valued the assistant’s organizational assets and knew that their company would not be as successful without her skills.

The accounts receivable department created a balance sheet of the assets and current liabilities sorted by economic value.

His social skills were a real asset, but his organizational ability was terrible.

The bookkeeper took a look at the company’s assets and financial statements to figure out why the cash flow and net worth had gone down while the payment of debts had gone up.

The shareholder added the working capital to the operating assets to find the total assets or the business operations.

What Are Translations of Assets?

Many people who work in finance need to communicate about assets at an international level. In order to do so, they need to know a lot of different translations for the word assets. 

Look at this list of translations of the word asset below from Nice Translator to learn all of the different ways in which you can communicate globally about assets!

  • Serbian: средства
  • Swahili: mali
  • Slovak: aktíva
  • French: des atouts
  • Croatian: imovina
  • Malay: aset
  • Arabic: أصول
  • Bulgarian: активи
  • Hebrew: נכסים
  • Catalan: béns mobles
  • Greek: περιουσιακά στοιχεία
  • Swedish: tillgångar
  • Russian: ресурсы
  • Dutch: middelen
  • Amharic: ንብረቶች
  • Bengali: সম্পদ
  • Marathi: मालमत्ता
  • Polish: majątek
  • Urdu: اثاثے
  • Indonesian: aktiva
  • Spanish: activos
  • Telugu: ఆస్తులు
  • Filipino: mga assets
  • Chinese (Taiwan): 資產
  • Chinese (PRC): 资产
  • Gujarati: અસ્ક્યામત
  • Portuguese (Brazil): ativos
  • Japanese: 資産
  • Italian: risorse
  • Thai: สินทรัพย์
  • Turkish: varlıklar
  • Welsh: asedau
  • Portuguese (Portugal): ativos
  • Finnish: omaisuus
  • Kannada: ಸ್ವಸಮಾನಗಳು
  • Czech: aktiva
  • Norwegian: eiendeler
  • Tamil: சொத்துக்கள்
  • Icelandic: eignir
  • Basque: aktibo
  • Hungarian: eszközök
  • Estonian: vara
  • Ukrainian: активи
  • Malayalam: ആസ്തി
  • Slovenian: sredstva
  • Vietnamese: tài sản
  • Latvian: īpašumi
  • Danish: aktiver
  • Romanian: active
  • German: Vermögenswerte
  • Korean: 자산
  • Hindi: संपत्ति
  • Lithuanian: turtas

What Are Synonyms of Assets?

People can use the word asset in both a generic and a specific sense. Usually, the word asset is used in the finance industry. 

However, if you are searching for a word that has the same meaning as the word asset without the financial connotation, you can opt to use a synonym for the word asset, like those listed below from Power Thesaurus

See if you can determine if these synonyms of the word asset are casual, formal, or somewhere in between!

  • ace in the hole
  • acquisition
  • advantage
  • advantageousness
  • advantages
  • aid
  • aptitude
  • attraction
  • beauty
  • benefit
  • blessing
  • bonus
  • boon
  • capital
  • capital spending
  • collectibles
  • convenience
  • credit
  • distinction
  • effects
  • estate
  • find
  • forte
  • gain
  • gift
  • godsend
  • good
  • good point
  • goods
  • help
  • helpfulness
  • holding
  • holdings
  • investment
  • investments
  • merit
  • money
  • perk
  • perks
  • perquisite
  • plus
  • possessions
  • profit
  • property
  • resource
  • resources
  • saving grace
  • selling point
  • service
  • something given
  • strength
  • strong point
  • talent
  • upside
  • usefulness
  • valuables
  • value
  • virtue
  • wealth
  • windfall
  • worth

What Are Antonyms of Assets?

If something is the opposite of an asset, this is called an antonym of the word asset. Look at this list of antonyms of assets from Power Thesaurus to learn how to refer to things that are detrimental. 

  • abomination
  • Achilles heel
  • affliction
  • albatross
  • arrears
  • atrocity
  • awfulness
  • bad fortune
  • bad luck
  • badness
  • baggage
  • ball and chain
  • bar
  • barrier
  • baseness
  • blemish
  • blind side
  • block
  • blockage
  • blow
  • burden
  • chain
  • check
  • clog
  • complication
  • constraint
  • contemptibility
  • contretemps
  • corruption
  • cross
  • curb
  • curse
  • damage
  • deadweight
  • deal-breaker
  • debasement
  • debauchery
  • debt
  • disadvantage
  • disfavor
  • distress
  • drawback
  • duty
  • fault
  • fly in the ointment
  • hindrance
  • indebtedness
  • injury
  • liability
  • loss
  • nasty habit
  • negative effect
  • obligation
  • problem
  • stumbling block
  • trouble
  • waste
  • worry

Conclusion

Overall, the word asset has two definitions. First, an asset is any beneficial quality or thing. In the business and financial industries, an asset is any resource that has an economic value. The different types of assets are current assets, fixed assets, tangible assets, and intangible assets.

Sources:

Asset synonyms – 638 Words and Phrases for Asset | Power Thesaurus 

Asset antonyms – 494 Opposites of Asset | Power Thesaurus 

Asset Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Assets | Nice Translator  

Asset Definition | Investopedia