ASSAIL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Assail

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/əsˈeɪl/ Listen

verb

Assail v. t. (past & past part. assailed; pres. part. assailing)

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. "No rude noise mine ears assailing." "No storm can now assail The charm he wears within."

To encounter or meet purposely with the view of mastering, as an obstacle, difficulty, or the like. "The thorny wilds the woodmen fierce assail."

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. "The papal authority... assailed." "They assailed him with keen invective; they assailed him with still keener irony."

Synonyms: To attack; assault; invade; encounter; fall upon. See Attack.

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Etymology of 'Assail'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Assail" Quotes from Famous Books

... antedated. For some time after the departure of the French, the distress was so general and so severe, that a large proportion of the lower classes became mendicants, and one of the greatest thoroughfares of Valetta still retains the name of the "Nix mangiare stairs," from the crowd who used there to assail the ears of the passengers with cries of "nix mangiare," or "nothing to eat," the former word nix being the low German pronunciation of nichts, nothing. By what means it was introduced into Malta, I know not; but it became the ...

— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... them in a civil war against their own countrymen, but rather as a fellow-countryman coming to aid them in a war against foreigners. They regarded him as belonging to the same race and lineage with themselves, while the enemies who were coming from beyond the Apennines to assail them they looked upon as a foreign and barbarous horde, against whom it was for the common interest of all nations of Greek descent to combine. It was this identity of interest between Pyrrhus and the people whom he came to aid, in respect both to their national origin and the cause ...

— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... and his position was such that two at least could assail him front and rear. He counted on that, and measured their approach with pale cheek but glittering eye, and thrust his shovel deep ...

— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and ...

— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... up boldly, wholly and heartily to her new life. Aunt Faith understood her niece thoroughly, and she knew there would be no danger of a relapse into the mistakes of the past; other faults, other temptations would assail her, but these were harmless. Having once seen and realized the falsity of worldliness when compared with religion, the worthlessness of mere money, when compared with true affection, Sibyl could never forget the lesson, for firm reason ...

— The Old Stone House • Anne March

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