(v. t.) To attack with violence, or in a vehement and hostile manner; to assault; to molest; as, to assail a man with blows; to assail a city with artillery.
(v. t.) To encounter or meet purposely with the view of mastering, as an obstacle, difficulty, or the like.
(v. t.) To attack morally, or with a view to produce changes in the feelings, character, conduct, existing usages, institutions; to attack by words, hostile influence, etc.; as, to assail one with appeals, arguments, abuse, ridicule, and the like.
Example Sentences:
(1) In confidence rape, the assailant is known to some degree, however slight, and gains control over his victim by winning her trust.
(2) Preliminary murder charges have been lodged against two men – both students at Islamic religious schools, who were arrested at the scene after being overpowered by bystanders – and against a third assailant who fled and has yet to be found, an officer said.
(3) The assailant was from another part of Afghanistan and had been working in Khost province for about a year, he said.
(4) "While the state security forces in some instances intervened to prevent violence and protect fleeing Muslims, more frequently they stood aside during attacks or directly supported the assailants, committing killings and other abuses," said an HRW report released on Monday.
(5) Supportive mothers (n = 71) believed that the child was telling the truth and that the assailant was primarily responsible.
(6) In the second, the two assailants pleaded guilty this week at Brighton crown court; one was given a two-year conditional discharge and another awaits sentencing.
(7) Didier Enrique “Electric” Ramirez was apprehended for his alleged role in the killing of Nelson García , 39, who was shot dead earlier this month by at least two assailants following a dispute with local landowners, authorities said in a statement.
(8) Parameters shared by two or more criminal acts allegedly committed by the same assailant were compared with the same parameters recorded from 50 or 100 other mutually independent criminal acts committed by other known assailants.
(9) "Just this week I'm assailed mightily for going after Islam and had been for a very long time before that."
(10) Up to three assailants were still inside the British Council building fighting against Afghan security forces and Nato troops, Kabul police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanikzai said.
(11) Such swagger would look naïve and unreflexive now, in a country assailed by anxiety about its own impotence in the world.
(12) Assailants were usually adolescent and young adult men of the same race; however, 43% of children less than 5 years of age were killed by women.
(13) The mean age at time of assault was 21.7 years and the mean number of assailants was 2.8.
(14) Unknown assailants attacked Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative.
(15) The assailant was a women in 61 pc of cases, a man in 35 pc of cases and a child in the remainder.
(16) It is concluded that social heredity, heavy consumption of alcohol and emotional dependence on the male assailant are major reasons for the woman's inability to break away from a relationship characterized by repeated battering.
(17) The assailant later admitted the assault after being shown the video footage and was jailed for five months in February.
(18) The attack marks the latest flaring of political violence in the deeply polarised kingdom, where months of anti-government rallies have been marred by sporadic gun and grenade attacks by unknown assailants.
(19) The threat of transmission of HIV was used by the assailant in 16 cases and sexually transmitted diseases, presumed consequent upon the attack, were found in 5 (18%).
(20) Before the criminal law was enacted, California allowed victims to sue their virtual assailants, but that is an expensive and time-consuming option.
Berate
Definition:
(v. t.) To rate or chide vehemently; to scold.
Example Sentences:
(1) David Cameron was accused of revealing his ill-suppressed Bullingdon Club instincts when he shouted at the Labour frontbencher Angela Eagle to "calm down, dear" as she berated him for misleading MPs at prime minister's questions.
(2) The history of events at the end of 2010, from the moment on 4 November when Cable called in the regulators, shows how relentlessly James Murdoch and his PR man Frédéric Michel lobbied and berated the politicians who were trying to stand in their way.
(3) Europe has always been there as a fault line, but now it’s front and centre.” (We meet, incidentally, on the day that John Major berates the government for its misleading optimism in the matter of Brexit and the next morning, at my request, she calls me to discuss it.
(4) To cap it all, the shadow foreign secretary and Unionist tub-thumper Douglas Alexander hijacked the row to berate the independence camp for lowering the debate's tone.
(5) Early in the film, a journalist comes to interview him about his defunct literary career; he berates her for caring (intellectually, Jep is a closet puritan).
(6) The appointment of Sir David Walker as chairman failed to prevent a string of shareholders berating the board about pay.
(7) The two jostled over who was the closest to Israel, with Romney berating Obama for failing to visit Israel during a Middle East tour.
(8) Sir Alex Ferguson berates the fourth official as Nani is sent off.
(9) The field is large enough for both kinds of studies and there is no reason to berate investigators as Meiselman does for not investigating the problem he happens to be studying.
(10) Billed as an exclusive, the story told how Prince Harry had received a joke phone message from Prince William pretending to be the younger man's then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, and berating him over his antics in a lap dancing club.
(11) The sight of stuffy, bespectacled greying men berating films aimed primarily at teenage girls is as farcical as it is depressing.
(12) She was also seen berating a gang vandalising a building.
(13) At the education department, for example, he accepted a measure of responsibility when Michael Gove, the secretary of state, left himself open to legal challenge over axeing school building projects and, on his watch at Ofsted , the inspectorate was berated for issuing a number of flawed reports.
(14) Naturally I confronted them about it, halting their child's progress with a foot on the front bumper, loudly berating their crass behaviour while impressed pedestrians looked on, cheering and punching the air and chanting my name until Audi boy's parents fell to the ground, clutching pitifully at my trouser-legs and sobbing for forgiveness.
(15) Regular readers have been berating me 'below the line' for the lack of coverage of the eurozone debt crisis today.
(16) Guest stars included David Beckham, Kate Moss, Robbie Williams and Gavin and Stacey actor James Corden, who in one sketch berated England's footballers for missing out on qualification for Euro 2008.
(17) With the SNP poised to win a majority of Scotland’s 59 Commons seats and play an influential role at Westminster, the Conservatives have released a series of attack ads berating the Labour leader, Ed Miliband , for failing to explicitly rule out any sort of post-election deal with the SNP.
(18) And this would seem to be the most plausible explanation for why Murdoch the younger, the chairman and chief executive News Corporation Europe and Asia, caused a media sensation on Wednesday by striding across the editorial floor at the Independent newspaper to berate its editor-in-chief, Simon Kelner.
(19) While contact was made, Mourinho was incensed on the bench and strode down the touchline to berate the visiting striker as he complained to the officials.
(20) Last week my friend and onetime colleague, the UK government's former climate adviser John Ashton, berated the BBC for giving Australian climate sceptic Bob Carter undue airtime in its reporting of the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).