assail
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English assailen, from Old French assaillir, assalir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“at, towards”) + salīre (“jump”). See also assault.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
assail (third-person singular simple present assails, present participle assailing, simple past and past participle assailed)
- (transitive) To attack with harsh words or violent force (also figuratively).
- Muggers assailed them as they entered an alley.
- Our ears were assailed by her joyous efforts on her new saxophone.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, pages 76-77:
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
- […] let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.
- 1942, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 14, in Dust Tracks on a Road[2], New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, published 1969, page 258:
- We got married immediately after I finished my work […] which should have been the happiest day of my life. […] ¶ But, it was not my happiest day. I was assailed by doubts.
- 2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow, Nairobo: East African Educational Publishers, Book 2, Chapter 3, p. 64,[3]
- He did not like being in crowds, foul smells galore assailing his nostrils.
Related terms edit
Translations edit
to attack violently
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