派遣 means 'to dispatch' or 'to assign', typically referring to sending someone—especially an employee, representative, or official—to a specific location or task. The character 派 (pài) conveys the idea of 'sending out', 'assigning', or 'dispatching', while 遣 (qiǎn) reinforces this meaning with its core sense of 'to send off' or 'to commission'. Together, they form a formal, often administrative or organizational verb used in contexts like business, diplomacy, education, or military operations.

This word is commonly used when describing institutional decisions—for example, assigning staff to overseas branches, deploying experts to disaster zones, or sending teachers to rural schools. It implies authority and intentionality: the subject doing the dispatching holds responsibility or decision-making power. While grammatically transitive, it’s rarely used in casual speech; instead, it appears in official documents, news reports, and workplace communication. It’s not used for everyday personal actions (e.g., you wouldn’t say 'I dispatched my friend to buy coffee').