Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
assailable. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
assailable, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
assailable in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
assailable you have here. The definition of the word
assailable will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
assailable, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From assail + -able.
Pronunciation
Adjective
assailable (comparative more assailable, superlative most assailable)
- Able to be assailed or attacked.
- Synonyms: exposed, vulnerable, pregnable, susceptible
c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :There’s comfort yet; they [Banquo and Fleance] are assailable; / Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown / His cloister’d flight […] there shall be done / A deed of dreadful note.
- 1791, Hannah Brand, Huniades, or, The siege of Belgrave, Act IV, Scene 3, in Plays and Poems, Norwich, 1798, p. 82,
- Plant the ordnance ’gainst the postern, / North of the Eastern tower; for there I deem / The wall is most assailable.
1849, Edwin Percy Whipple, “South’s Sermons”, in Essays and Reviews, volume I, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, published 1887, page 385:Indeed, he lived among a generation of sinners, whose consciences were not assailable by smooth circumlocutions, and whose vices required the scourge and the hot iron.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 41, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 203:All that most maddens and torments ; all that stirs up the lees of things ; all truth with malice in it ; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain ; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought ; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.
1993 February 16, James Dao, quoting Michael V. McGill, “Politics Complicates Formulas for Aid to Schools”, in The New York Times, page B1:What is assailable is that in the process of achieving that goal , you level everybody down.
Derived terms