assault
/əˈsɔlt/noun, verb
assault is spelled A-S-S-A-U-L-T. The wrong spelling people search most is assult: about 480 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Assault is a noun meaning “A violent onset or attack with physical means, for example blows, weapons, etc”. The plural of assault is assaults.
How many letters and syllables are in assault?
| Letters | 7: A-S-S-A-U-L-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 28 times per million words; the 3,364th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, assult, about 480 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell assault?
Assault is spelled A-S-S-A-U-L-T. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for assault in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is assault?
Assault appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,364th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce assault?
- UK /əˈsɒlt/
- UK /əˈsɔːlt/
- US /əˈsɔlt/
Assault has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-assault.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with assault?
5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as assault from its last stressed vowel (/ɔlt/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of assault
- assaults plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- assaulting participle, present
- assaulted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does assault mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A violent onset or attack with physical means, for example blows, weapons, etc.
The army made an assault on the enemy.
- 2
A violent verbal attack, for example with insults, criticism, and the like
She launched a written assault on the opposition party.
- 3
An attempt to commit battery: a violent attempt, or willful effort with force or violence, to do hurt to another, but without necessarily touching the person, such as by raising a fist in a threatening manner, or by striking at the person and missing.
- 4
The crime whose action is such an attempt.
- 5
An act that causes someone to apprehend imminent bodily harm (such as brandishing a weapon).
- 6
The tort whose action is such an act.
- 7
A non-competitive combat between two fencers.
verb
- 1
To attack, physically or figuratively; to assail.
Tom was accused of assaulting another man outside a nightclub.
- 2
To threaten or harass.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate assault?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of assault: LHA.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Assault in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | assaut, agression , attaquer, agresser |
| German | Anschlag, Überfall, Angriff , überfallen, angreifen |
| Portuguese | agressão, ataque, assalto , agredir |
| Spanish | asalto, acometimiento, agresión, ataque , asaltar, atacar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does assault come from?
From Middle English assaut, from Old French noun assaut, derived from the past participle of the verb assalir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“at, towards”) + salīre (“jump”). See also assail. Spelling Latinized around 1530 to add an l.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).