as·sail·ant

(ə-sā′lənt)

A person who attacks another.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

assailant

(əˈseɪlənt)

a person who attacks another, either physically or verbally: he was unable to recognize his assailants.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

as•sail•ant

(əˈseɪ lənt)

n.

a person who attacks.

[1525–35; < Middle French]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

assailant - someone who attacks

aggressor, assaulter, attacker

offender, wrongdoer - a person who transgresses moral or civil law

ambusher - an attacker who waits in a concealed position to launch a surprise attack

avenger, retaliator - someone who takes vengeance

brute, savage, wildcat, beast, wolf - a cruelly rapacious person

bludgeoner - an assailant who uses a bludgeon

bully, hooligan, roughneck, rowdy, ruffian, yob, yobbo, yobo, tough - a cruel and brutal fellow

harrier, harasser - a persistent attacker; "the harassers were not members of the regular army"

iconoclast - someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions

marauder, piranha, predator, vulture - someone who attacks in search of booty

night rider, nightrider - member of a secret mounted band in United States South after the American Civil War; committed acts of intimidation and revenge

shedder, spiller - an attacker who sheds or spills blood; "a great hunter and spiller of blood"

slasher - someone who slashes another person

stabber - someone who stabs another person

lapidator, stoner - an attacker who pelts the victim with stones (especially with intent to kill)

assailant

noun attacker, assaulter, invader, aggressor, assailer Other party-goers rescued the man from his assailant.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

assailant

noun

One who starts a hostile action:

aggressor, assailer, assaulter, attacker.

Translations

مُهاجِـم

útočník

angriberoverfaldsmandplageånd

Angreifer

agresor atacante

agresseur attaquant

árásarmaîur

aggressore assalitore attentatore

нападающий

saldırgan

攻击者

assailant

[əˈseɪlənt] N → asaltante mf, agresor(a) m/f
she did not recognize her assailants → no reconoció a los que la agredieron
there were four assailants → eran cuatro los agresores

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

assailant

[əˈseɪlənt] n → agresseur m, assaillant m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

assailant

n → Angreifer(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

assailant

[əˈseɪlənt] n → assalitore/trice

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

assail

(əˈseil) verb

to attack, torment. He was assailed with questions; assailed by doubts.

asˈsailant noun

a person who attacks. His assailant came up behind him in the dark.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I should certainly have never been able to do anything from being magnanimous--neither to forgive, for my assailant would perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature, and one cannot forgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were owing to the laws of nature, it is insulting all the same.

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Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in so silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look round.

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As before, when Sing had threatened to filch his new possession from him, Number One held the girl with one hand while he met the attack of this new assailant with the other; but here was very different metal than had succumbed to him before.

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The foremost assailant leaped quickly upward, but at the top he met the sudden sword that he had not expected--the quarry had been unarmed before.

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Then one advanced singly, and apparently more in the character of a herald than of an assailant.

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Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, without uttering a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with his powerful hands, raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment, in the midst of shrieks of anguish, then suddenly, with superhuman force, hurled this cluster of men backward into the Place.

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He scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting alarms.

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Daddy Jacques showed a stupidly sorrowful face and with silly lamentations kept repeating that we were mistaken--the keeper could not be the assailant. We were obliged to compel him to be quiet.

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Sancho Panza, who was coming on close behind puffing and blowing, seeing him fall, cried out to his assailant not to strike him again, for he was poor enchanted knight, who had never harmed anyone all the days of his life; but what checked the clown was, not Sancho's shouting, but seeing that Don Quixote did not stir hand or foot; and so, fancying he had killed him, he hastily hitched up his tunic under his girdle and took to his heels across the country like a deer.

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But in this case they will answer in the affirmative with all their lives; the enemy, crouching in double ranks behind the stone wall and in cover of the hedge, will wait until it is possible to count each assailant's teeth.

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The Jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and, seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant's head.

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Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will.

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