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assailant

noun
/əˈseɪlənt/

Etymology

From Old French assaillant, from the verb assaillir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“to, towards”) + salīre (“to jump”). Equivalent to assail + -ant.

  1. derived from ad
  2. derived from assaliō
  3. derived from assaillant

Definitions

  1. Someone who attacks or assails another violently, or criminally.

    • I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of umber smirch my face; The like do you; so shall we pass along, And never stir assailants.
    • […] commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look out for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities of our parents absence to attack and carry off as many as they could seize.

  2. A hostile critic or opponent.

    • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne and Son and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 3, p. 41, […] the assailants of the quill have their honour as much at heart as the assailants of the sword.

  3. Assailing

    Assailing; attacking.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for assailant. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

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