assaultive
English edit
Etymology edit
Adjective edit
assaultive (not comparable)
- Confrontational; tending or seeming to assault; characterized by assault.
- an assaultive patient; an assaultive incident
- 1852, “A Dish of Willis,” review of Nathaniel Parker Willis, Pencillings by the Way, in Church’s Bizarre: For Fireside and Wayside, New Series, Part 12, 18 September, 1852, p. 367,[1]
- […] we must say, that depreciatory judgments and assaultive criticism, are not only not to our taste, but especially ungrateful to our feelings.
- 1966, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood[2], New York: Random House, Part 4, p. 297:
- For the most part, his rages in the past have been directed at authority figures—father, brother, Army sergeant, state parole officer—and have led to violent assaultive behavior on several occasions.
- 1985, Oliver Sacks, chapter 8, in Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder[3], London: Pan, published 1987, page 165:
- We live in an increasingly assaultive and noisy environment, and one may obtain the clearest histories of the provocative effects of this in some migraineurs.
- 2009 January 9, A. O. Scott, “Godard's '60s Policier, Set in Atlantic City, France”, in New York Times[4]:
- As assaultive as "Made in U.S.A" can be, it also seems to have been made in a spirit of insouciance, improvisation and fun.
Derived terms edit
Noun edit
assaultive (plural assaultives)
- (psychiatry, criminology) A person who assaults others.
- 1962, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest[5], New York: Signet, page 134:
- This man is not only very very sick, but I believe he is definitely a Potential Assaultive.
- 1980, Curt R. Bartol, chapter 8, in Criminal Behavior: A Psychosocial Approach,[6], Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, page 223:
- Extreme assaultives were operationally defined as those who were convicted of murder, manslaughter, or attempted murder. Moderate assaultives included persons convicted of wounding with intent to cause serious bodily harm, malicious or unlawful wounding, and assault.