assail
Americanverb (used with object)
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assails,
present (3rd person singular)
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assailed,
past participle, past
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assailing
present participle
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to attack vigorously or violently; assault.
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to attack with arguments, criticism, ridicule, abuse, etc..
to assail one's opponent with slander.
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to undertake with the purpose of mastering.
He assailed his studies with new determination.
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to impinge upon; make an impact on; beset.
His mind was assailed by conflicting arguments.
The light assailed their eyes.
verb
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to attack violently; assault
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to criticize or ridicule vehemently, as in argument
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to beset or disturb
his mind was assailed by doubts
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to encounter with the intention of mastering
to assail a problem
to assail a difficult mountain ridge
Synonym Usage
See attack.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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assailablenessnoun
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assailernoun
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assailmentnoun
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assailableadjective
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unassailedadjective
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unassailingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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assailsimple
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assailssimple
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have assailedperfect
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has assailedperfect
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am assailingprogressive
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are assailingprogressive
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is assailingprogressive
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have been assailingperfect progressive
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has been assailingperfect progressive
Past
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assailedsimple
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had assailedperfect
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was assailingprogressive
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were assailingprogressive
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had been assailingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of assail
1175–1225; Middle English asaylen < Old French asalir < Late Latin assalīre, equivalent to Latin as- as- + salīre to leap, spring
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing assail
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Othello
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But sociologists in the scholar-activist mold note that Du Bois also believed in using sociological truth in the pursuit of activism, promising in 1906 to “never cease to protest and assail the ears of America.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Musk found that cartoonist’s tweet and called his ban “insane,” inspiring his followers to assail r/comics.
From Slate ● Mar. 13, 2025
The problem is that Walz's cheery Midwestern normalcy has an authenticity to it that's hard to assail.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2024
Today, whenever Mr. Arévalo appears in public, he attracts throngs to hear him assail the government’s attacks on Guatemala’s democracy.
From New York Times ● Aug. 18, 2023
‘All is vain, you say, if he has the Ring. Why should he think it not vain to assail us, if we have it?’
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
They’re from melting insulation foam and whatever it is that gets airborne when fire assails solar panels.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
Meanwhile, the document assails America’s friends across the Atlantic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025
But when an unspecified disease assails T'Challa's body from within, Shuri is powerless.
From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2022
Her documentary, “One Child Nation,” which assails the country’s population-control policy, was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar in 2019.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 28, 2021
Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as that which assails not only its existence, but its reputation, which pursues it in life and beyond the grave.
From A Logic Of Facts Or, Every-day Reasoning by George Jacob Holyoake
Critics assailed the carefully curated lifestyle presented by Meghan as tone-deaf.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, whose administration was widely assailed for its desultory initial response, has made high-profile appearances in La Guaira.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
The competitive threat posed by cheaper Chinese substitutes has once again assailed semiconductor stocks, leading to dramatic falls in some of the biggest memory chip makers in Asia on Tuesday.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
He did not respond to a detailed list of questions but assailed the requests in two posts on X, where he has 1.8 million followers.
From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2026
Now, however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long.
From "1984" by George Orwell
He has already moved on from assailing the frontier labs to milking them by selling them compute at a steep markup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Pratt has been regularly assailing Bass and her record on social media, even as he promotes his new book, “The Guy You Loved to Hate.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2026
GM went full speed ahead, pouring money into national ad campaigns assailing things like men eating tofu.
From Slate ● Jun. 22, 2025
For his part, Fauci—a veteran of numerous appearances before Congress—held his ground, assailing accusations made against him as “seriously distorted,” “absolutely false,” and “simply preposterous.”
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 3, 2024
“Well, thank God Miss Annie has left for a while. Now perhaps I can play my lute without her rasping denunciations assailing me from across the alley.”
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
