Assail
[ə'seɪl] or [ə'sel]
Definition
(verb.) attack someone physically or emotionally; 'The mugger assaulted the woman'; 'Nightmares assailed him regularly'.
Editor: Rebekah--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To attack with violence, or in a vehement and hostile manner; to assault; to molest; as, to assail a man with blows; to assail a city with artillery.
(v. t.) To encounter or meet purposely with the view of mastering, as an obstacle, difficulty, or the like.
(v. t.) To attack morally, or with a view to produce changes in the feelings, character, conduct, existing usages, institutions; to attack by words, hostile influence, etc.; as, to assail one with appeals, arguments, abuse, ridicule, and the like.
Checked by Cindy
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Assault, attack, invade, oppugn, fall upon, fly at, bear down upon, make aggression on.
Typed by Helga
Synonyms and Antonyms
[See ASSAULT]
Typed by Denis
Definition
v.t. to assault: to attack.—adj. Assail′able.—ns. Assail′ant one who assails or attacks; Assail′ment.
Checked by Clifton
Examples
- To attack the first is not to assail the last. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- Have faith in the immortality of the soul, which no pain, no mortal disease, can assail or touch! Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Care cannot assail us here. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- I don't doubt the position you have gained in the town, and I don't wish to assail it even if I could. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- It was not like Worcester's, gaping wide open, to receive and retain all the trash that might assail his ears. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- He gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been intrusted with the writ. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- He has over and over again solemnly declared that, until this scandal assailed him, he had never even heard of the Moonstone. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- The patent was infringed and assailed, but finally sustained by the highest courts of England. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- Had Rachel reverted to this unlucky accident, at the critical moment when my place in her estimation was again, and far more seriously, assailed? Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- They assailed the walrus, the bear, and the whale. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Nothing was clear but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproaches on all sides. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Let him be prepared to be assailed by the odours of undrained gutters, ditches, and roads called streets, and escape, if he can, stumbling and falling into them. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Plato. The Republic.
- If unassailed, we depart assailing no one. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- Spain was assailing Granada, the last foothold of the Moslems in western Europe. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Typed by Abe