ASSAILANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does assailant mean? 

• ASSAILANT (noun)
  The noun ASSAILANT has 1 sense:

1. someone who attacks

  Familiarity information: ASSAILANT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ASSAILANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who attacks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

aggressor; assailant; assaulter; attacker

Hypernyms ("assailant" is a kind of...):

offender; wrongdoer (a person who transgresses moral or civil law)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "assailant"):

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

avenger; retaliator (someone who takes vengeance)

beast; brute; savage; wildcat; wolf (a cruelly rapacious person)

bludgeoner (an assailant who uses a bludgeon)

bully; hooligan; roughneck; rowdy; ruffian; tough; yob; yobbo; yobo (a cruel and brutal fellow)

harasser; harrier (a persistent attacker)

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)

raper; rapist (someone who forces another to have sexual intercourse)

shedder; spiller (an attacker who sheds or spills 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))

Derivation:

assail (attack in speech or writing)

assail (launch an attack or assault on; begin hostilities or start warfare with)

assail (attack someone physically or emotionally)

 Context examples 

He had apparently been struck down first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him long after he was dead.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The ebb-tide, which had so cruelly delayed us, was now making reparation and delaying our assailants.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The car started with a great clanging of its gong, and, as Jimmy's gang drove off the last assailants, they, too, jumped off to finish the job.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Bird and maid, however, had but little chance against their assailant who, laughing loudly, caught her wrist in one hand while he drew her towards him with the other.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On the other hand, there was no wound upon his person, while the state of Straker’s knife would show that one at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were clubbed off.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The two professors, their tempers aggravated no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had ensued.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With nose serrulated by continuous spasms, hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping out like a red snake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred, lips wrinkled back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could compel a pause on the part of almost any assailant.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

That a man should lie in wait for and follow a very handsome woman is no unheard-of thing, and if he has so little audacity that he not only dared not address her, but even fled from her approach, he was not a very formidable assailant.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)