Assailant

How to spell assailant

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce assailant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assailant mean?

1. nounA person who physically attacks another.

Assailant in a sentence

• The victim was unable to describe her assailant to the police.

• Security footage helped officers identify the assailant within hours.

Where does assailant come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb assilire, meaning 'to leap upon' or 'to spring at', which was built from ad- 'toward' and salire 'to leap'. The same salire root that meant leaping also gives English words such as 'salient' and 'sally', so an assailant is literally one who leaps at you. The verb passed into Old French as asaillir or assalir, meaning to attack, and English took up 'assail' from it during the medieval period. The noun 'assailant', meaning the person doing the attacking, arrived later through French in the 1500s, carrying the agent suffix -ant. The doubled s and the unexpected -ant ending (rather than -ent) are the spelling traps, both inherited faithfully from the French and Latin forms.

How the word is built

• assail (to attack, from Latin assilire 'to leap upon')
• -ant (agent suffix: one who does)