Word.ws English Dictionary

assaile

assaile is the obsolete spelling of assail.

Meaning of assail

Verb

assail (third-person singular simple present assails, present participle assailing, simple past and past participle assailed)

  1. (figuratively, sometimes, transitive) To attack with harsh words or violent force.
    • Muggers assailed them as they entered an alley.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To overcome or successfully argue against; defeat.
    • "Yes," he said, half musing to himself, "I knew it must exist: the one explanation that accounts for everything and cannot be assailed. We have reached the bed-rock of truth at last."1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

Forms of assaile

third-person singular presentassailes
present participleassailing
past participleassailed
pastassailed

Questions about assaile

What is assaile the obsolete spelling of?
Assaile is the obsolete spelling of assail.

Words near assaile in the dictionary

  1. assailability
  2. assailable
  3. assailableness
  4. assailant
  5. assailants
  6. assaile
  7. assailed
  8. assailer
  9. assailers
  10. assailes
  11. assailest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: assaile (page history and authors); assail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “assaile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/assaile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.