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assail

verb
/əˈseɪl/

Etymology

From Middle English assailen, from Old French assaillir, assalir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“at, towards”) + salīre (“jump”). See also assault.

  1. derived from ad — “at, towards”
  2. derived from assalio
  3. derived from assalir
  4. inherited from assailen

Definitions

  1. To attack with harsh words or violent force.

    • Muggers assailed them as they entered an alley.
    • Our ears were assailed by her joyous efforts on her new saxophone.
    • With greedy force he gan the fort assayle, / Whereof he weend possesse soone to bee, / And win rich spoile of ransackt chastitee.

  2. To overcome or successfully argue against

    To overcome or successfully argue against; defeat.

    • "Yes," he said, half musing to himself, "I knew it must exist: the one explanation that accounts for everything and cannot be assailed. We have reached the bed-rock of truth at last."
    • 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.

The neighborhood

Derived

assailable, assailant, assailer, assailment, reassail, unassailability, unassailed, unassailing

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at assail. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01assail02argue03grounds04justification05believes06believe07despite08insult

A definitional loop anchored at assail. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at assail

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA