assail
Other forms: assailed; assailing; assails
To assail is to attack or assault — with throwing stars, fists, words or, less tangibly but just as violently, with troubles or doubts.
Believe it or not, assail evolved from the ancient Latin word assilire, which means "to jump on." So picture an attacker jumping on you, throwing punches and maybe some insults, too. Because assail also means to ridicule or heap your worries upon someone. As novelist Charlotte Bronte noted, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.” Think on that.
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attack someone physically or emotionally“Nightmares assailed him regularly”types:baitattack with dogs or set dogs uponbulldogattack viciously and ferociouslyrushattack suddenlyblindsideattack or hit on or from the side where the attacked person's view is obstructedsavageattack brutally and fiercelyreassailassail againjumpmake a sudden physical attack onmolestharass or assault sexually; make indecent advances togang-raperape (someone) successively with several attackers
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attack in speech or writingtypes:clawattack as if with clawsvitriolsubject to bitter verbal abuseripcriticize or abuse strongly and violentlywhangattack forcefullyrubbishattack stronglyslangabuse with coarse languagecurseheap obscenities upontype of:criticise, criticize, knock, pick apartfind fault with; express criticism of; point out real or perceived flaws
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launch an attack or assault on; begin hostilities or start warfare with“Serbian forces assailed Bosnian towns all week”synonyms: attacktypes:submarineattack by submarinegasattack with gas; subject to gas fumesblitzattack suddenly and without warninginvade, occupymarch aggressively into another's territory by military force for the purposes of conquest and occupationstrafeattack with machine guns or cannon fire from a low-flying planecannonadeattack with cannons or artillerytorpedoattack or hit with torpedoesslicehit a ball so that it causes a backspinchophit sharplystrokestrike a ball with a smooth blowteargasattack with teargas; subject to teargas fumesebbhem in fish with stakes and nets so as to prevent them from going back into the sea with the ebbcarpet bombbomb a large area systematically and extensivelybomb outmake somebody homeless by destroying their houses with bombsdive-bombbomb from a diving airplaneglide-bombbomb by glidingskip-bombattack with delayed release bombshydrogen-bombattack with a hydrogen bombpattern-bombbomb in certain patternsletter bombsend an explosive tofirebombattack with incendiary bombs
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Vocabulary lists containing assail
The top 1,000 vocabulary words have been carefully chosen to represent difficult but common words that appear in everyday academic and business writing. These words are also the most likely to appear on the SAT, ACT, GRE, and ToEFL. To create this list, we started with the words that give our users the most trouble and then ranked them by how frequently they appear in our corpus of billions of words from edited sources. If you only have time to study one list of words, this is the list.
Influenced by the duplicitous Iago, Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, begins to doubt his wife's faithfulness.
The Magna Carta, signed in 1215, is 800 years old on June 15, 2015. The Magna Carta settled the rebellion of some barons against the king. Although some of the language is still obscure, the document is widely credited as being the first statement of individual rights under kingly rule. Among other things, it put a limit on payments that could be made to a king and ensured swift justice, guaranteed by a board of peers, in this case 25 barons. Here are 35 words from the English translation of the original Latin of this document that is the forerunner of democratic expressions like the Declaration of Independence.