What's the difference between assail and harass?

Assail


Definition:

  • (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.

Harass


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fatigue; to tire with repeated and exhausting efforts; esp., to weary by importunity, teasing, or fretting; to cause to endure excessive burdens or anxieties; -- sometimes followed by out.
  • (n.) Devastation; waste.
  • (n.) Worry; harassment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The city council’s community safety team, now responsible for a leaflet campaign urging young Muslims not to join Isis, used to employ 31-year old Mashudur Choudhury as a racial harassment worker.
  • (2) Some 300 million women and girls are forced to defecate outside, exposed not only to the risks of disease and bacterial infection, but also harassment and assault by men.
  • (3) The checkpoints are a recipe for harassment and abuse.” Among other moves disclosed were plans to hire 300 extra security guards to secure public transport in the city.
  • (4) Kelly reportedly spoke with lawyers investigating claims of sexual harassment by former Fox chairman Roger Ailes, who left the network following allegations by several women of years of abuse.
  • (5) Even when things are taken more seriously, harassers are generally allowed to leave quietly, which enables them to move some place else and do the same thing.” Many of the women who made complaints to their institutions said they felt they were the ones on trial, while alleged perpetrators were often protected by management who feared losing a star researcher and their funding.
  • (6) A mother and her son shared delusional beliefs that doubles of themselves existed and that they were being harassed by the police and social and educational services.
  • (7) For me, this is what needs to change - we need a cultural shift in our attitudes and behaviours and that needs to see all of us standing up and calling out harassment and misogyny, whether it is in the street or the workplace, to erode that normalisation that makes perpetrators feel safe doing it again and again.
  • (8) He stressed that the sister-in-law and her husband were not only accused of circulating libellously untrue stories but also of harassment of the wealthy financier.
  • (9) Anna Gautheron only learned what the term "street harassment" meant when she read about it online.
  • (10) Rob Bliss, who runs a viral video marketing agency, created and directed the video in association with Hollaback , a New York-based group dedicated to ending street harassment .
  • (11) • Detainees’ families have suffered further persecution: for example, the wives of Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang, Xie Yang and Xie Yanyi have been subjected to police monitoring and harassment; the children of Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang have been denied enrolment at state schools due to police pressure; and the authorities have put pressure on the landlords of Wang Quanzhang’s and Xie Yanyi’s families to evict them from their homes.
  • (12) Almost all of the 20-plus women claim they experienced Ailes’s harassment firsthand.
  • (13) On one level this is quite just, as everyone has the right to defend themselves, but in cases of sexual harassment it does nothing to protect vulnerable people or to encourage them to come forward.
  • (14) Not only did erections survive unscathed, but sexual harassment continued to flourish.
  • (15) Public debate over the problem intensified after the 2011 uprising, with activists and lawyers saying they see progress in transforming attitudes and more harassers being jailed.
  • (16) And in the last month, it has faced serious allegations about sexual harassment , as early-stage investors have lambasted its “destructive culture” .
  • (17) Miller is suing the NoW's parent company, News Group, and Mulcaire, accusing them of breaching her privacy and of harassing her "solely for the commercial purpose of profiting from obtaining private information about her and to satisfy the prurient curiosity of members of the public regarding the private life of a well-known individual".
  • (18) The buses are so crowded that women are bound to get harassed.
  • (19) The tribunal added that Dean's dismissal was a consequence of unlawful harassment arising "not from treating the claimant differently from non-disabled associates [in enforcing the 'look policy'], but in treating her the same in circumstances where it should have made an adjustment".
  • (20) "Dreaming only of sleep and a sip of tea, the exhausted, harassed and dirty convict becomes obedient putty in the hands of the administration, which sees us solely as a free work force.