assassinee

From assassin(ate) +‎ -ee (suffix forming nouns meaning people or things to whom or to which actions are done).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈsæsɪniː/, /əˌsæsɪˈniː/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈsæsəni/, /əˌsæsəˈni/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (one pronunciation) -iː
• Hyphenation: as‧sas‧sin‧ee

assassinee (plural assassinees)

1. (nonstandard, often humorous) One who is assassinated.

   Synonym: assassinatee

   • 1924 March, A[ubrey] Wyatt Tilby, “A Study in Life Values”, in The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review, volume XCV, number DLXV, London: Constable & Company , →OCLC, footnote 1, page 462:

     In some ways I regret the failure to arrive at a definite conclusion, but it has provided me with an extremely interesting list of suicides and assassinees that includes such great names as Hannibal, [Julius] Cæsar, [Thomas] More, [Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of] Strafford, [Robert] Clive, [Maximilien] Robespierre and [Robert Stewart, Viscount] Castlereagh.

   • 1941, The Spectator: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, Theology, and Art, volume 167, London: F. C. Westley, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 228, column 1:

     The general rule, I suppose, is that if the assassinee is deep enough sunk in turpitude the assassin may secure an honourable place in history.

   • 1953, A[bbott] J[oseph] Liebling, “The Navasota Murder”, in The Honest Rainmaker: The Life and Times of Colonel John R. Stingo, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, →OCLC; republished in Liebling at Home, New York, N.Y.: Wideview Books, 1982, →ISBN, page 311:

     On entering the city room, I was met by the managing editor, who asked me if I knew that the assassinee’s brother-in-law owned the money behind the paper. The family had had the story jerked, and had managed to keep it out of every other paper in the city.

   • 1958 October 24, Graham Greene, chapter 1, in Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment, London: The Reprint Society, published 1960, →OCLC, part IV, section I, page 119:

     "Who was it?" / "They haven't caught him yet." / "I mean the—the assassinee." / "Nobody important. But he looked like the Minister. Where did you have supper?"

   • 2007, Robert George Cooper, Thailand beyond the Fringe, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, →ISBN, page 25:

     On the even brighter side, if the rubbed-out would-be reader were a person of some note, the assassination might merit some free widespread publicity resulting in a rush to buy and read what was so thoughtfully tucked under the armpit of the assassinee at the moment the fatal bullet struck home.

• assassination on Wikipedia.Wikipedia