Adjacent Words

Attack definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ATTACK', v.t [Heb. to thrust, to drive, to strike.
1. To assault; to fall upon with force; to assail, as with force and arms. It is the appropriate word for the commencing act of hostility between armies and navies.
2. To fall upon, with unfriendly words or writing; to begin a controversy with; to attempt to overthrow or bring into disrepute, by satire, calumny or criticism; as, to attack a man or his opinions in a pamphlet.
ATTACK', n. An onset; first invasion; a falling on, with force or violence, or with calumny, satire or criticism.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (military) an offensive against an enemy (using weapons); "the attack began at dawn" [syn: attack, onslaught, onset, onrush]
2: an offensive move in a sport or game; "they won the game with a 10-hit attack in the 9th inning"
3: intense adverse criticism; "Clinton directed his fire at the Republican Party"; "the government has come under attack"; "don't give me any flak" [syn: fire, attack, flak, flack, blast]
4: ideas or actions intended to deal with a problem or situation; "his approach to every problem is to draw up a list of pros and cons"; "an attack on inflation"; "his plan of attack was misguided" [syn: approach, attack, plan of attack]
5: the act of attacking; "attacks on women increased last year"; "they made an attempt on his life" [syn: attack, attempt]
6: a decisive manner of beginning a musical tone or phrase [syn: attack, tone-beginning]
7: a sudden occurrence of an uncontrollable condition; "an attack of diarrhea"
8: the onset of a corrosive or destructive process (as by a chemical agent); "the film was sensitive to attack by acids"; "open to attack by the elements"
9: strong criticism; "he published an unexpected attack on my work" v
1: launch an attack or assault on; begin hostilities or start warfare with; "Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939 and started World War II"; "Serbian forces assailed Bosnian towns all week" [syn: attack, assail] [ant: defend]
2: attack in speech or writing; "The editors of the left-leaning paper attacked the new House Speaker" [syn: attack, round, assail, lash out, snipe, assault]
3: take the initiative and go on the offensive; "The Serbs attacked the village at night"; "The visiting team started to attack" [syn: attack, aggress]
4: attack someone physically or emotionally; "The mugger assaulted the woman"; "Nightmares assailed him regularly" [syn: assail, assault, set on, attack]
5: set to work upon; turn one's energies vigorously to a task; "I attacked the problem as soon as I got out of bed"
6: begin to injure; "The cancer cells are attacking his liver"; "Rust is attacking the metal"

Merriam Webster's

I. verb Etymology: Middle French attaquer, from Old Italian *estaccare to attach, from stacca stake, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English staca Date: 1562 transitive verb 1. to set upon or work against forcefully 2. to assail with unfriendly or bitter words <a speech attacking her political enemies> 3. to begin to affect or to act on injuriously <plants attacked by aphids> 4. to set to work on <attack a problem> 5. to threaten (a piece in chess) with immediate capture intransitive verb to make an attack • attacker noun Synonyms: attack, assail, assault, bombard, storm mean to make an onslaught upon. attack implies taking the initiative in a struggle <plan to attack the town at dawn>. assail implies attempting to break down resistance by repeated blows or shots <assailed the enemy with artillery fire>. assault suggests a direct attempt to overpower by suddenness and violence of onslaught <commandos assaulted the building from all sides>. bombard applies to attacking with bombs or shells <bombarded the city nightly>. storm implies attempting to break into a defended position <preparing to storm the fortress>. II. noun Date: 1655 1. the act of attacking with physical force or unfriendly words ; assault 2. a belligerent or antagonistic action 3. a. a fit of sickness; especially an active episode of a chronic or recurrent disease b. a period of being strongly affected by something (as a desire or mood) 4. a. an offensive or scoring action <won the game with an 8-hit attack> b. offensive players or the positions taken up by them 5. the setting to work on some undertaking <made a new attack on the problem> 6. the beginning of destructive action (as by a chemical agent) 7. the act or manner of beginning a musical tone or phrase III. adjective Date: 1899 designed, planned, or used for carrying out a military attack <an attack helicopter>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. & n. --v. 1 tr. act against with (esp. armed) force. 2 tr. seek to hurt or defeat. 3 tr. criticize adversely. 4 tr. act harmfully upon (a virus attacking the nervous system). 5 tr. vigorously apply oneself to; begin work on (attacked his meal with gusto). 6 intr. make an attack. 7 intr. be in a mode of attack. --n. 1 the act or process of attacking. 2 an offensive operation or mode of behaviour. 3 Mus. the action or manner of beginning a piece, passage, etc. 4 gusto, vigour. 5 a sudden occurrence of an illness. 6 a player or players seeking to score goals etc. Derivatives: attacker n. Etymology: F attaque, attaquer f. It. attacco attack, attaccare ATTACH

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Appel Ap`pel", n. [F., prop., a call. See Appeal, n.] (Fencing) A tap or stamp of the foot as a warning of intent to attack; -- called also attack.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Attack At*tack", v. i. To make an onset or attack.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Attack At*tack", n. [Cf. F. attaque.] 1. The act of attacking, or falling on with force or violence; an onset; an assault; -- opposed to defense. 2. An assault upon one's feelings or reputation with unfriendly or bitter words. 3. A setting to work upon some task, etc. 4. An access of disease; a fit of sickness. 5. The beginning of corrosive, decomposing, or destructive action, by a chemical agent.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Attack At*tack", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Attacked; p. pr. & vb. n. Attacking.] [F. attaquer, orig. another form of attacher to attack: cf. It. attacare to fasten, attack. See Attach, Tack a small nail.] 1. To fall upon with force; to assail, as with force and arms; to assault. ``Attack their lines.'' --Dryden. 2. To assail with unfriendly speech or writing; to begin a controversy with; to attempt to overthrow or bring into disrepute, by criticism or satire; to censure; as, to attack a man, or his opinions, in a pamphlet. 3. To set to work upon, as upon a task or problem, or some object of labor or investigation. 4. To begin to affect; to begin to act upon, injuriously or destructively; to begin to decompose or waste. On the fourth of March he was attacked by fever. --Macaulay. Hydrofluoric acid . . . attacks the glass. --B. Stewart. Syn: To Attack, Assail, Assault, Invade. Usage: These words all denote a violent onset; attack being the generic term, and the others specific forms of attack. To attack is to commence the onset; to assail is to make a sudden and violent attack, or to make repeated attacks; to assault (literally, to leap upon) is to attack physically by a had-to-hand approach or by unlawful and insulting violence; to invade is to enter by force on what belongs to another. Thus, a person may attack by offering violence of any kind; he may assail by means of missile weapons; he may assault by direct personal violence; a king may invade by marching an army into a country. Figuratively, we may say, men attack with argument or satire; they assail with abuse or reproaches; they may be assaulted by severe temptations; the rights of the people may be invaded by the encroachments of the crown.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(attacks, attacking, attacked) Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. To attack a person or place means to try to hurt or damage them using physical violence. He bundled the old lady into her hallway and brutally attacked her... While Haig and Foch argued, the Germans attacked... VERB: V n, V • Attack is also a noun. ...a campaign of air attacks on strategic targets... Refugees had come under attack from federal troops. N-VAR: usu with supp 2. If you attack a person, belief, idea, or act, you criticize them strongly. He publicly attacked the people who've been calling for secret ballot nominations... A newspaper ran an editorial attacking him for being a showman. VERB: V n, V n for -ing • Attack is also a noun. The role of the state as a prime mover in planning social change has been under attack... The committee yesterday launched a scathing attack on British business for failing to invest. N-VAR: usu with supp 3. If something such as a disease, a chemical, or an insect attacks something, it harms or spoils it. The virus seems to have attacked his throat... Several key crops failed when they were attacked by pests. VERB: V n, V n • Attack is also a noun. The virus can actually destroy those white blood cells, leaving the body wide open to attack from other infections. N-UNCOUNT: also N in pl 4. If you attack a job or a problem, you start to deal with it in an energetic way. Any attempt to attack the budget problem is going to have to in some way deal with those issues. VERB: V n 5. In games such as football, when one team attacks the opponent's goal, they try to score a goal. Now the US is controlling the ball and attacking the opponent's goal... The goal was just reward for Villa's decision to attack constantly in the second half. VERB: V n, V • Attack is also a noun. Lee was at the hub of some incisive attacks in the second half. N-COUNT 6. An attack of an illness is a short period in which you suffer badly from it. It had brought on an attack of asthma. N-COUNT: with supp 7. see also counter-attack, heart attack

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. v. a. 1. Assail, assault, storm, encounter, invade, charge, engage, oppugn, have at, set upon, fly at, run at, make a run at, rush upon, spring upon, have a fling at, have a cut at, bear down upon, make aggression on, ride full tilt against. 2. Impugn, censure, criticise, reflect upon, pass censure on. See under assail. II. n. Assault, offence, onset, onslaught, charge, thrust, encounter, invasion, aggression, descent. See assault.

Moby Thesaurus

Jacksonian epilepsy, MO, Rolandic epilepsy, abdominal epilepsy, abuse, accept, access, acquired epilepsy, action, activated epilepsy, activation, affect, affect epilepsy, affection, aggression, aggressiveness, ailment, akinetic epilepsy, algorithm, all-out war, ambush, amok, apoplexy, appeal to arms, approach, armed combat, armed conflict, arrangement, arrest, articulation, assail, assailing, assailment, assault, assume, attack, attempt, autonomic epilepsy, barbarize, batter, battering, battle, begin, beleaguer, bellicosity, belligerence, belligerency, berate, berating, beset, besiege, bitter words, blackening, blister, blitz, blockade, blockage, bloodshed, blueprint, blueprinting, bout, brutalize, buckle down, buckle to, burn, bushwhack, butcher, butchery, calculation, cardiac epilepsy, carry on, castigate, censure, challenge, charge, charting, chauvinism, citation, clonic spasm, clonus, combat, combativeness, come at, come down on, complaint, conception, condemn, contrivance, contumely, convulsion, corrode, corrosion, cortical epilepsy, course, crack down on, cramp, criminate, criticism, criticize, cry out against, cry out on, cry shame upon, cursive epilepsy, declare war, decompose, decrial, decry, defy, delivery, denigrate, denigration, denounce, denunciation, deprecate, deprecation, descend on, descend upon, descent, design, destroy, destruction, device, devour, diatribe, disease, disorder, disorderliness, disparage, disparagement, disposition, dissolve, diurnal epilepsy, dive into, draw first blood, drive, eat, eclampsia, embark in, embark upon, encompass, endeavor, engage in, engage in battle, enter on, enter upon, enterprise, enunciation, envisagement, epilepsia, epilepsia gravior, epilepsia major, epilepsia minor, epilepsia mitior, epilepsia nutans, epilepsia tarda, epilepsy, epitasis, erode, erosion, excoriate, execration, fall, fall into, fall on, fall to, fall upon, falling sickness, fashion, fay, fever, fight, fighting, figuring, fit, focal epilepsy, foray, forcible seizure, foresight, forethought, form, frenzy, furor, fury, fustigate, game, gang up on, get busy, get cracking, get going, get under way, get with it, go about, go at, go for, go in for, go into, go on, go to it, go upon, grand mal, graphing, grip, ground plan, guidelines, guise, hammer, harass, hard words, harry, haute mal, have at, hit, hit like lightning, hop to it, hostilities, hot war, hysterical epilepsy, ictus, idea, implicate, implication, impugn, impugnment, incriminate, incrimination, inculpate, inculpation, incursion, infect, inroad, intention, invade, invasion, invective, inveigh against, invest, involve, involvement, irrupt, jawing, jeremiad, jingoism, jump, jump to it, killing, la guerre, land on, larval epilepsy, laryngeal epilepsy, laryngospasm, lash, latent epilepsy, launch forth, launch into, lay about, lay about one, lay at, lay hands on, lay into, lay on, lay waste, laying waste, layout, levy war on, light into, line, line of action, lines, lineup, lockjaw, long-range plan, loot, looting, make war on, malign, manner, manner of working, mapping, massacre, master plan, matutinal epilepsy, maul, means, menstrual epilepsy, method, methodology, might of arms, militarization, military operations, mobilization, mode, mode of operation, mode of procedure, modus operandi, move into, mug, murderous insanity, musicogenic epilepsy, muster, myoclonous epilepsy, nocturnal epilepsy, obstreperousness, occlusion, offense, offensive, onset, onslaught, open hostilities, open war, operations research, order, organization, orgasm, outbreak, paroxysm, petit mal, philippic, phonation, physiologic epilepsy, pillage, pillaging, pitch in, pitch into, plan, planning, planning function, plunge into, pounce upon, pound, practice, prearrangement, press, procedure, proceed to, proceeding, process, program, program of action, pronunciation, psychic epilepsy, psychokinesia, psychomotor epilepsy, pugnacity, push, rage, raid, ramp, rampage, rant, rape, rating, rationalization, rave, reflex epilepsy, resort to arms, revile, revilement, riot, rioting, roar, roast, rotatoria, routine, ruin, rush, sack, sacking, sail into, sally, savage, scarify, scathe, schedule, schema, schematism, schematization, scheme, scheme of arrangement, scorch, screed, seize, seizure, sensory epilepsy, serial epilepsy, set about, set at, set forward, set going, set on, set to, set to work, set upon, setup, sexual climax, shooting war, siege, skin alive, slash, slaughter, sortie, sow chaos, sowing with salt, spasm, spell, square up, start, start in, state of war, stoppage, storm, strategic plan, strategy, strike, strike at, stroke, style, surprise, swoop down on, system, systematization, tack, tackle, tactical plan, tactics, take on, take the offensive, take up, tardy epilepsy, tear, tear around, technique, terrorize, tetanus, tetany, the big picture, the drill, the how, the picture, the sword, the way of, throes, thromboembolism, thrombosis, tirade, tone, tongue-lashing, tonic epilepsy, tonic spasm, torsion spasm, total war, traumatic epilepsy, trismus, trounce, turn, turn on, turn to, ucinate epilepsy, undertake, unruliness, utterance, vandalize, venture upon, vilification, vilify, violate, violation, visitation, vituperation, vocalization, voicing, wade into, war, warfare, warmaking, warmongering, warring, wartime, waste, wasting, way, wise, working plan, wreck