Assailant

//əˈseɪlənt// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 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."

  2. 2
    someone who attacks wordnet
  3. 3
    A hostile critic or opponent. broadly, figuratively

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Assailing; attacking. not-comparable

    "But he though blind of sight, / Despis'd, and thought extinguish'd quite, / With inward eyes illuminated, / His fiery virtue roused / From under ashes into sudden flame, / And as an evening dragon came, / Assailant on the perched roosts / And nests in order ranged / Of tame villatic fowl, but as an eagle / His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads."

Synonyms

All synonyms
attackeraggressorattackeradversaryaggressorantagonist

Antonyms

All antonyms
victim

Example

More examples

"Witnesses provided detailed descriptions of the assailant."

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.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.