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Assail   /əsˈeɪl/   Listen
Assail

verb
(past & past part. assailed; pres. part. assailing)
1.
Attack someone physically or emotionally.  Synonyms: assault, attack, set on.  "Nightmares assailed him regularly"
2.
Launch an attack or assault on; begin hostilities or start warfare with.  Synonym: attack.  "Serbian forces assailed Bosnian towns all week"
3.
Attack in speech or writing.  Synonyms: assault, attack, lash out, round, snipe.



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"Assail" Quotes from Famous Books



... fortnight they were ready for sea, armed and provided with the King's cannon, munitions, and stores. Trenchant, an excellent pilot, was forced to join the party. Their favorite object was the plunder of a certain church on one of the Spanish islands, which they proposed to assail during the midnight mass of Christmas, whereby a triple end would be achieved: first, a rich booty; secondly, the punishment of idolatry; thirdly, vengeance on the arch-enemies of their party and their faith. They set sail on the eighth of December, taunting those who remained, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... no matter what tempests assail us, the wind will but sweep the rotten branches out of the tree. Though war should arise, nothing will be touched that belongs to Thee. We have a city which cannot be moved; and the removal of the things which can be shaken but makes more manifest its impregnable security, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Canst thou stand 'fore that glory of the sun, That like God's beacon on Eternity Wakeneth up Creation unto Act, And sheddeth strength and hope, to cheer them on, Yet rebel-wise cast down thine untried arms, Ere foes assail thee, or thy work be done? No, there's a power within the soul that yearns For action, as the lark for liberty, Pursuing ever with insatiate thirst And aspiration, some unsubstant aim. There is assertion of the rule divine, That rest ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... it but to go; and a clear conscience keeps a man bold even in face of greater peril than was likely to assail him now. He thought it probable that some rumour of the stir on the fair day had reached the ecclesiastic, and that he wanted an account of it in detail. Sir Oliver was quite prepared to give him that, and entered the presence of the prior with a bold front ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail; Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale And the dim desolate deep; twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... affirming a truth he swears "by the crass" simply, and this with him is an oath of considerable obligation. He generally, in order to render it more impressive, accompanies it with suitable action, that is, he places the forefinger of each hand across, that he may assail you through two senses instead of one. On the contrary, when he intends to hoax you by asserting what is not true, he ingeniously multiplies the oath, and swears "by the five crashes," that is by his own five fingers, placing at the same time his four fingers and his thumbs across each other ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... husband there was no community of tastes or interests; he never talked to her, he never read to her, she did not know that he read at all; the garden he disliked as a useless trouble; he would not drive, except such a gay horse that Hitty dared not risk her neck behind it, and felt a shudder of fear assail her whenever his gig left the door; neither did he care for his child. Nothing at home could keep him from his pursuits; that she well knew; and, hopeful as she tried to be, the future spread out far away in misty horror and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... the power stirring within their breasts. They sang the songs of old times, of the lands of the West, where their forefathers live ere the earth-fires slew those lands, and the sea-waves buried them, leaving only the Eri, the isle where dwelt men so holy that the earth-fires dared not to assail it, and the ocean stood at bay. Lightly the warriors juggled with their great weapons of glittering bronze; and each told of his deeds in battle and in the chase; but woe to him who boasted or spoke falsely, magnifying his prowess, for then would his sword angrily turn of itself in its scabbard, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... you'd risk your life for those you did assail. I thank you, thank you kindly, sir—but ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... Rosecrans had been defeated. A little later Confederate troops were seen moving to the rear and up the mountain. This, instead of being as reinforcements for defeated troops, as it really was, was taken as a possible aggressive movement which, in some occult way, must assail and overthrow the main army in front. As the day wore away, Poe, of the engineers, was sent to our right to find a position on the immediate left of the enemy where artillery could be used. I was detailed ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... purpose, from his first intent Remov'd; e'en such was I on that dun coast, Wasting in thought my enterprise, at first So eagerly embrac'd. "If right thy words I scan," replied that shade magnanimous, "Thy soul is by vile fear assail'd, which oft So overcasts a man, that he recoils From noblest resolution, like a beast At some false semblance in the twilight gloom. That from this terror thou mayst free thyself, I will instruct thee ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... roof of the church, and thence through the firmament above, showed him seated, harp in hand, among the crowned choristers of the spiritual world. On his tombstone, too, the record is highly eulogistic; nor does history, so far as he holds a place upon its page, assail the consistency and uprightness of his character. So also, as regards the Judge Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergyman, nor legal critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local politics, would venture a word against this eminent person's sincerity as a Christian, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... did first my heart assail, Unto mine aid I summoned every sense, Doubting if that proud tyrant should prevail, My heart should suffer for mine eyes' offence. But he with beauty first corrupted sight, My hearing bribed with her tongue's harmony, My taste by her sweet lips drawn with delight, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... the God I serve. You must meet the doom you have labored for.... After this season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never again say to a man, 'Stay your rifle ball,' when our enemies assail us, but shall say, 'Slay them where you ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... the fragments of the projected answer, that Johnson's pension was one of the points upon which Mr. Sheridan intended to assail him. The prospect of being able to neutralize the effects of his zeal, by exposing the nature of the chief incentive from which it sprung, was so tempting, perhaps, as to overrule any feelings of delicacy, that might otherwise have suggested the illiberality of such an attack. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... garrison of twenty men, with four brass swivels. The platform was covered with a watertight roof, and the men slept there at night upon their arms, to keep the natives from approaching to injure the trees or the fort by fire—the only way they could assail the garrison. It looked indeed like a castle—formidable in every respect; and the ascent to it was by a ladder, which was drawn up at night into this war-like habitation. The next step was to clear the woods from around the castle, in order to prevent a lurking enemy from coming within arrow-shot ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... rapidly to fill the gap in the line—Hill followed Longstreet—and then the world beheld the singular spectacle of an army extended in a long skirmish line over a hundred miles, with another army massed not daring to assail it. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... eye, that feared to give offence. 'Who art thou, courteous stranger? and from whence? 'Why roam thy steps to this abandoned dale?' 'A shepherd-boy (the Youth replied), far hence 'My habitation; hear my artless tale; 'Nor levity nor falsehood shall thine ear assail. ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... Radicalism is at discount fortunately. The poor Queen is very unhappy about it, but now nothing can be done, only one may wish to see them well out of it. Poor Queen! constantly new events painful to her assail her. I had rather a kind letter from the Emperor Napoleon about the state of Mexico. I fear he will find his wishes to see there a stable Government not much liked in England, though his plans are not for any advantage France is to derive from it. To-morrow we go to Liege ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... there be any merit in it, as she could not be otherwise if she tried. Her charities are proverbial. She orders poor people about like a constable, and tends them like a Saint Vincent de Paul. She is very religious. No doubts whatever assail her mind. What she does, she does from unshaken principles, and therefore never hesitates in the choice of ways and means. Therefore she is always at peace with herself and very happy. At Warsaw they call my aunt, on account of her abrupt manners, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the book is the same throughout. It is not different from that of Thackeray's other books, and it is that of a man too sensible of his own love of the advantages he enjoys from the existing state of things ever to assail, with any great earnestness of purpose, the errors and absurdities of the world,—who trusted, for example, in one of his essays, never to be guilty of speaking harshly either of the South or North ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... of the influence it would give them over the rest. An arrangement better adapted to keep popular opinion within reason and justice, and to guard it from the various deteriorating influences which assail the weak side of democracy, could scarcely by human ingenuity be devised. A democratic people would in this way be provided with what in any other way it would almost certainly miss—leaders of a higher grade of intellect and character ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... First fifty noble sons were born, Boundless in size yet viewless too, They came the demons to subdue. And fifty children also came Of Vijaya the beauteous dame, Sanharas named, of mighty force, Hard to assail or check in course. Of these the hermit knows the use, And weapons new can he produce. All these the mighty saint will yield To Rama's hand, to own and wield; And armed with these, beyond a doubt Shall Rama put those fiends ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... feminye, where that no man is, but only all women. And after is Albania, a full great realm; and it is clept Albania, because that the folk be whiter there than in other marches there-about: and in that country be so great hounds and so strong, that they assail lions and slay them. And then after is Hircania, Bactria, Hiberia and ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... made such a terrible impression on me that I took a secret oath to dare any dangers that might assail me on the territories of the King of France, rather than endure a repetition of that hideous experience. Nothing but a miserable point of honour now kept me at Roche-Mauprat. It was evident that a storm was gathering over our heads. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... devotion—tenacious, inviolable—every day displayed by women of the lower classes, whose natures, if gross, retain their primitive sincerity. Even with women of the world, depraved though they be by the temptations that assail them, nature asserts herself; and it is no rarity to see them devote an entire life to one idea, one thought, or one affection! Their lives do not know the thousand distractions which at once disturb and console men; and any idea that takes hold upon them easily becomes fixed. They dwell upon ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... Cicero argues that mental pleasures, if arising from the bodily, could not, as they do, exceed their cause; and Descartes, that the Efficient Cause must have all the perfections of the effect. Conversely Descartes, too, and persons who assail, e.g. the Principle of Population by reference to Divine benevolence (thus implying that, because God is perfect, therefore what they think perfection must obtain in nature), assume that ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... and life expands without them; and here were souls as unconsciously beneficent as the one, as spontaneous in growth and shaping as the other. Theirs was not a force that moved mechanically in right lines, with limited objects before it. It did, indeed, sweep with arrowy swiftness of assail on every point that offered; but when I remember that it more often pleaded than stormed, that it penetrated into every secret recess that mercy casually opened, and gently stirred into fuller life those roots of human feeling that can be ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... flesh against his. Under the blouse and skirt, he was discovering, she wore very little, and that was just as well; nagging thoughts about the doubtful privacy of his office were beginning to assail him. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... is done; While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun, Bugles here shall sound reveille. Sleep! the deer is in his den; Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen, How thy gallant steed lay dying. Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, Think not of the rising sun, For at dawning ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the murderer's arm prevail; Should tyranny our lives assail; Unmoved, triumphant, scorning death, We'll bless Thee with our latest breath. The hour, the glorious hour will come, That consecrates the patriots' tomb; And with the pang our memory claims, Our country will ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... natives say. Each tree has its ant, big or small, black or red; and all sting more or less. We see their armies marching up the trunks, and the brush of a bough brings down a little shower. Monstrous mangrove-flies and small brown-coloured 'huri,' most spiteful biters, and wasps here and there, assail the canoe; and we are happy if we escape a swarm of the wild bees: their curious, treacle-like honey ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... this was not the first time Mr. Hall had been the victim of appearances. His trusting nature had led him on six previous occasions to incur the censure of the law. He was, therefore, now bidden to take up his abode where no such temptations could assail him for the ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... the wild scream of the sea-birds, the howl of the sea-lions, the whistle and shriek of the gale, the dull, threatening thunder of the vast breakers, are the dreary and desolate sounds which lull them to sleep at night, and assail their ears when they awake. In the winter months even their supply vessel, which, for the most part, is their only connection with the world, is sometimes unable to make a landing for weeks at a time. Chance visitors they see only ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... the parted swell, that but once leaving him, then flowed so wide away—on each bright side, the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way thou may'st have bejuggled and ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... possessed of ingratiating himself with men of every class and every nation, and his high military genius, he would have been as formidable a chief of an army of CONDOTTIERI as Hannibal afterwards was.] Then, when we had done all this, we intended to assail Peloponnesus with our collected force. Our fleets would blockade you by sea, and desolate your coasts; our armies would be landed at different points, and assail your cities. Some of these we expected to storm and others we meant ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... seventh morning / from Bechelaren went The knight with train of warriors. / Attire and armament Bore they in fullest measure / through the Bavarian land, And ne'er upon the journey / dared assail ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... all the leech's art, which had hung over our idolized monarch so long, at length showed symptoms of giving way, and there was as great rejoicing in the camp as if neither danger nor misfortune could assail us more; a new spirit sparkled in every eye, as if the awakening lustre in the Bruce's glance, the still faint, yet thrilling accents of a voice we had feared was hushed forever, had lighted on every heart, and kindled anew their slumbering ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... clamour then grew great; Whilst ev'ry torturing passion of the foul Glar'd in the ghastly visages of several. Some grinn'd in rage, some tore their hair, whilst others, Upon their knees, with hands and eyes uplifted, In curses dar'd assail all-ruling Providence Under the varied names of Fate and Fortune. Nor is there one in the black list of crimes, Which these infernals seem'd not prompt to perpetrate, Whilst on a cast ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard

... knight returned she had looked radiant in her gold and gems, like a princess. Now, crushed and feeble, she presented a pitiable image of powerless yet offensively hollow splendour. It would have required too much exertion to assail her son-in-law with invectives, like her energetic mother; but when she saw her daughter, to whom she had already appealed several times in a tone of anguished entreaty, rest her proud head so tenderly on her husband's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... The corporation which is honestly and fairly organized, whose managers in the conduct of its business recognize their obligation to deal squarely with their stockholders, their competitors, and the public, has nothing to fear from such supervision. The purpose of this Bureau is not to embarrass or assail legitimate business, but to aid in bringing about a better industrial condition—a condition under which there shall be obedience to law and recognition of public obligation by all corporations, great or small. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... where he was wounded in the knee, with the result that he became permanently lame. He consequently retired to Portugal, and his companions in arms, jealous of his prowess, took advantage of his affliction to assail him with vile imputations. The King Emmanuel encouraged the complaints, and accused him of feigning a malady of which he was completely cured. Wounded to the quick by such an assertion, and convinced of having lost the royal favour, Maghallanes renounced for ever, by a formal and public instrument, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... teachings of Nature. Thus from the book On Bees, the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre, we learn that "wasps persecute bees and make war on them out of natural hatred"; and these, he tells us, typify the demons who dwell in the air and with lightning and tempest assail and vex mankind—whereupon he fills a long chapter with anecdotes of such demonic warfare on mortals. In like manner his fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his book The Ant Hill, teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia, which are said to have ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... would doubtless have refused admission. Before his main body would still lie the works which the French had been diligently strengthening for more than two months, and which, with his whole force in hand, he did not care to assail. The enemy, knowing him thus weakened, could well afford to spare a number greatly superior to the detachment he had adventured, certain that, while they were dislodging it, he could make no serious impression ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... you here," he said, "a much worse fate would overtake you than any that you anticipate, for your minds are not advanced enough to imagine the horrors that assail all those who lack courage. This is the testing place for aspirants, and more win their way across it than you might suppose, impudence of ambition adding skill to recklessness. All must make the attempt, ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... be full well avenged," said they. "He alone against us three is not worth a straw. Go your way, uncle, and fulfil your vow; and we will assail the traitor ere he be out of this forest." Then William went on his way to the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... &c (impulse) 276. battue^, razzia^, Jacquerie, dragonnade^; devastation &c 162; eboulement [Fr.]. assailant, aggressor, invader. base of operations, point of attack; echelon. V. attack, assault, assail; invade; set upon, fall upon; charge, impugn, break a lance with, enter the lists. assume the offensive, take the offensive; be the aggressor, become the aggressor; strike the first blow, draw first blood, throw the first stone at; lift a hand against, draw the sword against; take up the cudgels; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Cornelio never stirred from his seat, but remained perfectly still, staring at me as if he was bewitched. The loud tones in which I spoke had brought round us all the people who were walking in the garden, and they arrived in time to hear me assail Cornelio with many other opprobrious terms. Plucking up heart, at last, from the presence of numbers, most of whom were his relations, servants, or friends, he made a show as if he would rise; but before he was on ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Chandos. "Because we have had good fortune upon our feet at Crecy and elsewhere they think that they have found the trick of it. But it is in my mind that it is very different to stand when you are assailed, as we have done, and to assail others when you must drag your harness for a mile and come ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cave a robber saw him and will come later in the night, when he is fast asleep, murder him, and throw his body into the sea; or he may have made his bed in the path of the bear or in the haunt of snakes. Many, many are the shapes of terror that assail the mind of the wanderer. How good to be a little boy who can trust in a great strong Father to "deliver him ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... island—for he can do so, if he have the will—that he shall be unable to resist thy prayer—thy fears—thy anguish, real or feigned, whichever that anguish may be. And should he not yield to thy intercessions, then assail him on another point. Tell him that thou wilt never rest until thou shalt have discovered the cause of those periodical visits which he makes to the other side of the mountains—threaten to accompany him the next time he goes thither. But I need not teach you how ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... exists is acknowledged to be a consequence of the inherent properties of eternal matter, which by contact, by blending, by combination, by change of form, produces order and confusion; with all those varieties which assail his sight, it is himself who is blind, when he imagines blind causes:—man only manifested his ignorance of the powers of motion, of the laws of Nature, when he attributed, any of its effects to chance. He did not shew a more enlightened feeling when he ascribed ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... sounds assail her ear, And soon Alphonso's victor train appear: Then, as with ling'ring step he mov'd along, 95 She saw her father mid' the captive throng; She saw with dire dismay, she wildly flew, Her snowy arms around his form she ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... intimately conversed with Michelangelo, I never once heard issue from that mouth words that were not of the truest honesty, and such as had virtue to extinguish in the heart of youth any disordered and uncurbed desire which might assail it. I am sure, too, that no vile thoughts were born in him, by this token, that he loved not only the beauty of human beings, but in general all fair things, as a beautiful horse, a beautiful dog, a beautiful piece of country, a ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... him, 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 ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... of endurance were now exhausted. He had spent a long day of excessive fatigue and excitement, and having wound it up with a heavy supper, sleep began to assail him with a fell ferocity that nothing could resist. He yawned once or twice, and sat on the bed blinking unmeaningly at the fire, as if he had something to say to it which he could not recollect just then. He nodded violently, much to his own surprise, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... name of Washington is inseparably linked with a memorable epoch. He adorned this epoch by his talents and the nobility of his character, and with virtues that even envy dared not assail. History offers few examples of such renown. Great from the outset of his career, patriotic before his country had become a nation, brilliant and universal despite the passions and political resentments ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Bunker Hill fought so long as powder and ball held out, but could not have been led to assail, in open field, the veterans whom they did, in fact, so effectively resist; and, as very often, a patriotic band has bravely defended, when unequal to aggressive action,—so the possession, defence, and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... thus he, who clearly is the common foe of each, deserves the hatred of all. Pray remember—what 188 you surely cannot forget—that the Huns do not overthrow nations by means of war, where there is an equal chance, but assail them by treachery, which is a greater cause for anxiety. To say nothing about ourselves, can you suffer such insolence to go unpunished? Since you are mighty in arms, give heed to your own danger and join hands with us in ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... tears and long unbreathed regret? Liest thou here thro' long sunshiny hours, Holding sweet converse with the springing flowers, Harking the singing of the warm sweet showers That fall like happy tears ... dost hear The birds that unafraid assail thine ear— And yet art silent when I whisper? ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner

... breath and waited, feeling that his voice could not have been heard, and a feeling of despair began to assail him and the fancy grew that he was sinking back into that horrible sensation of inertia which had mastered him ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... but failed: when I quickened my pace she quickened hers, and kept easily ahead of me. At length I did begin to grow a little afraid. Why was she so careful not to be seen? Extraordinary ugliness would account for it: she might fear terrifying me! Horror of an inconceivable monstrosity began to assail me: was I following through the dark an unheard of hideousness? Almost I repented ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... day of his earnest wish to obtain peace Bonaparte said, "You see, Bourrienne, I have two great enemies to cope with. I will conclude peace with the one I find most easy to deal with. That will enable me immediately to assail the other. I frankly confess that I should like best to be at peace with England. Nothing would then be more easy than to crush Austria. She has no money except ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... do glide, Our houses in Harfleet are all to rent: The Englishmen our bulwarks have brent" And women cried, "Alas that ever they were born!" The Frenchmen said, "Now be we shent! By us now the town is forlorn: It is best now therefore That we beseech this English King of grace, For to assail us no more; Lest he destroy us in this place. Then will we bid the Dolphin make him ready, Or else this town delivered ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... were on shore, where the governor was giving a ball in their honor. From the windows of his residence they could see the pirates assail their ship and, ere they could hasten back to it, ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... around us that we see with but "half an eye." They are in the "fringe" of consciousness, and we deliberately ignore them. Many more things come to us in the form of sense-impressions that clamorously assail our sense-organs, but no effort of the will is needed to ignore them. We are absolutely impervious to them and unconscious of them because by the selection of our life interests we have closed the doors ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton

... world. But this kind of striving is but a beating the air, and will come to nothing at last-(Bunyan's Strait Gate, vol. 1, p. 866). Coming souls will have opposition from Satan. He casts his fiery darts at them; wanderings in prayer, enticements to old sins, and even blasphemous thoughts, assail the trembling penitent, when striving to enter into the strait gate, to drive him from "the way and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... to assail you on your return to England with another Letter so close on that to which you have only just answered—you who will answer! I wish you would consider this Letter of mine an Answer (as it really is) to that last of yours; and before long I will write again and call ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... which he feels bound to submit him. Marmion is a knight with a claim to nothing more than the half of the proverbial qualifications. He is sans peur, but not sans reproche; and it is one expression of the practical irony that constantly lurks to assail him that even his fearlessness quails for a time before the Phantom Knight on Gifford Moor. The whole attitude of the Palmer is ironical; and, after the bitter parting with Angus at Tantallon, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... flowers, lo, fall, and on their course the waters red do flow! Petty misfortunes of ten thousand kinds (my heart assail!) ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... appeal to you, my own Democratic friends—those men that have never failed to rally under the glorious banner of the country whenever an enemy at home or abroad has dared to assail it—to you with whom it has always been my pride to act—do not allow the mortification, growing out of a defeat in a partisan struggle, and the elevation of a party to power that we firmly believe to be dangerous to the country—do ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... but little during the night. They were worried and anxious as to what the coming day would bring forth. As he lay awake during the long silent hours, Charley felt his burden of responsibility grow heavy indeed and doubts began to assail him as to the wisdom of the course he was pursuing. After all, there was yet time to retreat. He had only to say the word and his companions would willingly follow. His plans in remaining were built largely on guesswork and theory. If they worked out as he ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... the air should continue so dank and depressing at our high altitude, and several times a most extraordinary stench, as of decaying carcasses, would assail our nostrils and cause us to grow faint and sickly. Soon we began to notice that these poisonous vapours were most pungent in the vicinity of certain enormous cactus-like growths which we encountered here and there; but these huge plants looked ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... revolted at such a step, although his own life had just been attempted from a cover. He was yet unpracticed in the ruthless expedients of savage warfare, of which he knew nothing except by tradition and theory, and it struck him as unfair advantage to assail an unarmed foe. His color had heightened, his eye frowned, his lips were compressed, and all his energies were collected and ready; but, instead of advancing to fire, he dropped his rifle to the usual position of a sportsman in readiness to catch his aim, and muttered to himself, unconscious ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... medical world. They heaped blunder upon blunder, and held him up to ridicule with all the wealth of invective characteristic of the learned controversy of the age. Cardan was deeply humbled and annoyed. "For my opponents, seizing the opportunity, took occasion to assail me through the reasoning of this book, and cried out: 'Who can doubt that this man is mad? and that he would teach a method and a practice of medicine differing from our own, since he has so many hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen said, I must in truth ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... began to make the best arrangements possible under the circumstances of the case to defend himself there. His numbers were altogether too small to defend the whole city against the overwhelming force which was advancing to assail it. He accordingly intrenched his troops in the palaces and in the citadel, and in such other parts of the city as it seemed practicable to defend. He barricaded all the streets and avenues leading ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... to a new wonder for the possibilities of life, a new fear for the dangers which might assail those who had much to cherish; and now she descried dimly the truth she was one day to see in the full light, that there is no gain without loss and no loss without gain, that things are divinely balanced, though man may ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... said she, "and we must have been very cruel to assail such a warm-hearted man who ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... derided on the stage, he takes no heed of such reproaches, for he is only inspired with honest motives and his Muse is no go-between. From the very outset of his dramatic career he has disdained to assail those who were men, but with a courage worthy of Heracles himself he attacked the most formidable monsters, and at the beginning went straight for that beast[109] with the sharp teeth, with the terrible eyes that flashed lambent fire ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... are making preparations to assail us everywhere. Roanoke Island, Norfolk, Beaufort, and Newbern; Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Pensacola, and New Orleans are all menaced by numerous fleets on the sea-board, and in the West great numbers of iron-clad ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... remaining feature of your singular address to Know Nothing Methodist Preachers to be replied to, and I am through. You assail the new party on the score of its secrecy, and of its concealment of its acts from the public. Had this objection come from any one but a Methodist Preacher, and a known advocate of Class-meetings being held with closed doors, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... war we can give only in outline. In the summer of 1860 a new attack was made on the Taku forts, troops being landed to assail them in the rear, in which direction no arrangement for defence had been made. As a result the forts fell, a large body of Tartar cavalry, which sought to stop the march of the allies with bows, arrows, and spears, being taught a lesson in modern war by the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... a yellow story for your yellow newspaper, a safe chance to gain prominence by yelping at the head of the pack. If he had been a rich man, if he had had a strong political party behind him, would you have dared assail him as you have? Never! ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... define or indicate; 2, to affirm or deny; 3, to mold or detect; 4, to conceal or reveal; 5, to surrender or hold; 6, to accept or reject; 7, to inquire or acquire; 8, to support or protect; 9, to caress or assail. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... comforting yourself with a false security, by despising my words, as the wild words of a madman, dreaming of the perpetration of impossible crimes. Throughout this letter I have warned you of what you may expect; because I will not assail you at disadvantage, as you assailed me; because it is my pleasure to ruin you, openly resisting me at every step. I have given you fair play, as the huntsmen give fair play at starting to the animal they are about to run down. Be warned ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... musingly, as the pangs of a healthy hunger began to assail his interior. "I wish he'd sent us one of the outstanding little chaps. I ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... housed the man he hated. He was no coward, and he would not take advantage of the loneliness and isolation of the spot to do him harm surreptitiously, but vividly the thought thrilled through him that someday he would assail him. Smoke was curling from the mud-and-stick chimney of the little structure, and he smiled contemptuously as he thought of how the bluegrass youth was doubtless pottering, within, getting ready ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... was asleep. Percy Darrow reflected that, were it not for the terror of these unexplainable hours, the prisoners within or their friends without could assail their confines boldly and formidably, even with dynamite, and none would be the wiser if only none happened to be within actual visual range of the operations. He himself quite coolly used the iron side piece to his bed as a battering-ram to break the locks of ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White

... will teach me, Monsieur Savinien. It cannot be very difficult. It is only necessary to wear a dove-colored coat like you, a gardenia in my buttonhole like Monsieur Le Bride, frizzled hair like Monsieur du Tremblay, and to assail the bank ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... the country, close to a number of peasants, whose terror at the sight and the sound of this strange monster from the skies was beyond description. The people assembled, and two monks having told them that the burst balloon was the hide of a monstrous animal, they immediately began to assail it vigorously with stones, flails, and pitchforks. The cure of the parish was obliged to walk up to the balloon to reassure his terrified flock. They finally attached the burst envelope to a horse's tail, and dragged it far across ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... along the level which had been driven to within nine feet of going through on the heading in which the inbreak of moss had taken place. He noticed the roof was broken in many places and that the timber which had been put in years before was rotten. Strange noises seemed to assail his senses, and stranger smells, yet the lilt of that old childish game was ever humming in his brain and he saw himself with other boys and girls with clasped hands linked in a circle and going round in a ring as they sang ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... without replying, began to mow the harvest with his sword, but had scarce smitten thrice when he perceived that every stalk that fell was instantly transformed into some poisonous or ravenous animal, which prepared to assail him. Instructed by the damsel, he snatched up a stone and cast it among the pack. A strange wonder followed; for no sooner had the stone fallen among the beasts, than they turned their rage against one another, and rent each ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... ships. Some or most of the Spanish ships were already come to the Azores, and the English were in great hopes to have taken them: But, on perceiving the Spanish fleet of war to be so strong, the lord Thomas Howard, who was admiral of the English, gave orders to his fleet not to assail the Spaniards, and on no account to separate from him without special orders[386]. Yet the vice-admiral, Sir Richard Grenville, in his ship the Revenge, bore into the Spanish fleet, and shot among them doing much harm, thinking ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... western men to come to the relief of their brethren of the seaboard and to strike a telling and decisive blow for all America. When the three southern provinces lay crushed and helpless at the feet of Cornwallis, the Holston backwoodsmen suddenly gathered to assail the triumphant conqueror. Crossing the mountains that divided them from the beaten and despairing people of the tidewater region, they killed the ablest lieutenant of the British commander, and at a single stroke undid all ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... and bent down his brow: "O man, what can magic avail thee! A false lying dotard, Enchanter, art thou: Our rage and contempt should assail thee. My horse might have borne me till now, but for thee Then the bones of his charger Oleg went ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... as we tread the varied path of life, Disaster dire demands a valued limb, We with the mood of Stoic bear the pain; While nagging tooth doth ever set us wild. 'Tis vain on deep philosophy to call When stinging gnats, unseen, do us assail; A warring instinct urges us to kill, And we delay not, till Dame Reason speaks. 'Twas but an automatic action of the mind When matter trivial late did rouse a phlegm Within my soul, which irritated sore, And on the instant I did stern resolve ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... back, his flock wheeling like a flight of birds and following him. He signaled to them to scatter. They had certainly been observed; at any moment a hail of lead might assail them invisibly out of the air. They must get to work quickly. But had they understood the significance of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... called, and as in a quite intelligible sense he was, he found his poetry pre-eminently among the pursuits, the passions, the interests and problems, of civilised men. His potent gift of imagination never tempted him, during his creative years, to assail the sufficiency of intellect, or to disparage the intellectual and "artificial" elements of speech; on the contrary, he appears from the outset employing in the service of poetry a discursive logic of unsurpassed ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure; There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it; Just start to sing as you tackle the thing That "cannot be ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... then assail thee, A double anguish will torment thee; And thou wilt wish (but wishes all will fail thee,) "O me! that I were young ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... minute ago I saw a fire very different from the fire of love, which only some displeasing sight can have provoked. What may this be? Tell me, pray; for you promised to tell me of any sort of temptation that might assail you." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... published anonymously) and this now advertised be a ridicule on it—I have nothing to say—But if it have not, I have ventured to pledge myself for you, that you would not wittingly give the high respectability of your names to an attack on a Manuscript work, which no man could assail but by ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... would release the free States from their present commercial and consequent political vassalage to the southern slave-holders, and thereby take from American slavery, the great citadel of its strength, and insure its overthrow by the influences which would arise to assail it from ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... remonstrated, entreated, and threatened by turns, in vain; and at length the officers, turning from him, began to assail the trembling Isabel with jests of the coarsest kind. This was more than the hot Corsican blood could endure, and suddenly breaking from his guard, the frantic lover rushed upon the commanding officer, who seemed to be the chief ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... benefits the man upon whom she bestows it or not. There are too many striking arguments in her favor, thrown by the surging tide of circumstances upon the surface of life's agitated waters, to allow a doubt to assail her. Too often, within our own memory even, has the slender yet firm hand of a woman been seen outstretched to snatch the life of a brother, husband or friend from the sluggish and perilous stream which runs slowly ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... unlikely that he shared Livingston's confidence in an election and thought it a good time to join the party of his relative; but whether his change was a matter of principle, of self-interest, or of resentment, it bitterly stung the Federalists, who did not cease to assail him as a turncoat for ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... hunter to take sure aim and send the fatal bullet. If the shot prove only a slight wound, and not mortal, the moose sometimes turns upon his enemy; and if a friendly tree be not convenient, the hunter stands a good chance of being trampled to death. In the rutting season the moose will assail even man himself without provocation; and at such times the old "bulls" (as the hunters term the males) have terrible conflicts with ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... pocket, would he narrow his heart to expand his purse, would he build up a character that is to endure for ever with such ill-tempered mortar as falsehood; would he be willing to encounter all the piercing looks and accusing words with which those he wronged will one day assail him, if he had taken his relationship to God, and man, ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King

... himself no extravagances of thought in this direction. Prudence was a good woman, he knew, and he intended, if Fate so willed, to devote the rest of his life to her happiness. As he drew near to his destination his heart beat a shade faster, and doubts began to assail him. He found himself speculating upon his chances of success. He believed that the daughter of Hephzibah Malling regarded him with favour, but nothing had gone before to give him any clue to her maiden feelings. He wondered doubtfully, and, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... clatter of approaching hoofs. Immediately afterwards three men rode past me, but did not see me, for I was crouching down behind some scrubby bushes. When the horsemen approached the house the dogs rushed forth to assail them, and their loud, fierce barking, and the wild shouts of some person from the house calling them off, were enough to make a dismounted man nervous. However, now was my only chance, and, starting ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... to deliver them over to the clutches of such a creature; and Pratinas went away full of anger and threatenings. How he came to be in Alexandria, and had returned so soon from Achillas's forces, if he had indeed gone to Achillas, was neither clear nor important. But that he had excited the mob to assail Cleomenes's mansion needed no great proof. Cleomenes himself had seen his artful fellow-countryman surveying the riot from a housetop, though doubtless he had kept at a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Mr Rawlings. "I needn't tell you to hurry, my boy, you know the necessity of that, on every account! Jasper shall stop here and help defend us in case the savages assail us before you get back;" and Mr Rawlings could not help smiling as he spoke, in spite of their perilous position, at the comical idea of the cowardly Jasper acting ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... goodly land, and have enjoyed all the offices and honors which my country could bestow. Amid all the political storms through which I have passed, the present is the first attempt which has ever been made, to my knowledge, to assail my personal or official integrity; and this as the time is approaching when I shall voluntarily retire from the service of my country. I feel proudly conscious that there is no public act of my life which will ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... smelled the odor of burning blubber and returned eagerly to their cakes of ice, for there is nothing so pleasing to your true walrus as the spectacle of a brother walrus being grilled. It was in time understood that if the walruses placed an affront upon Senator Hanway he would assail them singly or in the drove. Then the walruses made their peace with him and admitted him to fellowship before his time; for your walrus cannot carry on a war and is only ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... meet his enemies; he baffles them at first, but countless numbers are upon him. They hurl him to the ground, trample him under foot, and pass on singing a song from the land of his Mother. As he rises, fresh numbers assail him, he bids defiance to them all, struggles, advances, until foaming, bleeding, sinking, he is again driven back, again forced to seek an outlet from the Palace. Thus fighting, running, falling, fainting, he makes his way ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various



Words linked to "Assail" :   claw, pick apart, invade, dishonor, barrage, bomb, assailable, beset, hit, set upon, whang, raid, vitriol, struggle, bait, strafe, hem in, clapperclaw, ravish, pepper, bombard, whip, sic, blackguard, criticise, blitz, scald, rip, pelt, savage, bust, strike, rape, surprise, violate, blister, outrage, surround, fight, contend, submarine, dishonour, set on, blindside, jump, criticize, molest, lash out, assault, set, rush, circumvent, knock, torpedo, abuse, gas, occupy, desecrate, besiege, counterattack, rubbish, bulldog, defend, counterstrike, profane, storm, shout, beleaguer, round, cannonade, attack, aggress



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