What's the difference between assail and polemic?

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.

Polemic


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to controversy; maintaining, or involving, controversy; controversial; disputative; as, a polemic discourse or essay; polemic theology.
  • (a.) Engaged in, or addicted to, polemics, or to controversy; disputations; as, a polemic writer.
  • (n.) One who writes in support of one opinion, doctrine, or system, in opposition to another; one skilled in polemics; a controversialist; a disputant.
  • (n.) A polemic argument or controversy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) My idea in Orientalism was to use humanistic critique to open up the fields of struggle, to introduce a longer sequence of thought and analysis to replace the short bursts of polemical, thought-stopping fury that so imprison us.
  • (2) Byatt said that, while she had not wished to present an allegory or a polemic, the story was impelled by a profound sense of gloom about the environment and indeed about all human endeavours.
  • (3) Anyone who allows himself to stoop to such polemics shows that they are running out of proper arguments”, said Jürgen Hardt, the foreign affairs spokesman for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
  • (4) i lent brett ratner my 2nd (of 2) parms dorz cos he wantd 2 impress women and I was worrid he mite get bbq sauce on it agen lol You've said your films are intended as "polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator."
  • (5) As one of the disenchanted Labour voters described by MacAskill, I have had many polemics put my way: the most persuasive have been George Galloway's "Just Say Naw" and a speech on the implications of Scottish independence for business by Rupert Soames, CEO of the Scottish firm Aggreko.
  • (6) Moore had contributed an essay on women's anger to an anthology of polemical writing.
  • (7) As well as appearing on TV, she writes a weekly column in the Sunday Fairfax papers, a column on The Drum, and books ranging from a Quarterly Essay on Malcolm Turnbull to the popular culture polemic The Wife Drought.
  • (8) Hitting back at the harsh criticism he has received in recent days, including depictions of him in the Greek press as an IS terrorist who had beheaded Greece, he said: “I have such a thick skin that it can’t derail me, but what does torment me is distorting polemic that completely misses the point.” Soon afterwards Sahra Wagenknecht of the far-left Linke, accused him of being a “cutback Taliban”.
  • (9) It is suggested that if change in the biomedical system is a goal of a critical clinical anthropology, the impact will be greater where objective and broad causal connections can be demonstrated with minimal use of rote or polemic arguments.
  • (10) And the groundbreaking forays into popular culture - his examinations of the British seaside postcard and boys' comics - and the revered polemical essays appeared in periodicals such as Horizon and Polemic.
  • (11) But Florian Philippot, Le Pen’s closest adviser, dismissed the accusations as “a campaign polemic”, describing Jalkh as “serious, moderate … a patriot and an honest man”.
  • (12) Based on considerable personal experience and a rigorous and critical analysis of case-reports, a highly polemic subject is discussed.
  • (13) I do not wish to engage in polemics regarding the relative worth of behavioral and psychodynamic theories of treatment, but this paper reflects my own misgivings about certain aspects of the token economy and is concerned more with the quality of the ward atmosphere it creates than with specific behavior changes.
  • (14) In one of the more conspiracy theorising polemics I have read in some while, he described this wealth-creating, free-trading, economic stimulus simply as "a monstrous assault on democracy" by institutions, "which have been captured by the corporations they are supposed to regulate".
  • (15) Since antiquity, puerperal mental disorders have always been the field of polemics concerning the different possible etiopathogenic hypothesis.
  • (16) Often the boundary between experience and polemic gets blurred.
  • (17) They range from the generally accepted to the frankly polemical and the merely heuristic.
  • (18) Walden aims at conversion, and Thoreau's polemical purpose gives it an energy and drive missing in the meanders of the sole other book he saw into publication during his short lifetime, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849).
  • (19) The main polemic is over whether it is most useful to evaluate the total estsrogens or the individual fractions.
  • (20) It is clear that polemic is not sufficient and that consensus practices can only be based upon firm scientifically acquired data and detailed discussion of the options by those most intimately involved.