assassin
/əˈsæsɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.66 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Someone who intentionally kills a person, especially a professional who kills a public or political figure.
verb
To assassinate.
Example Sentences
- "The hand that held the bond of so many jarring interests lay powerless beneath the pall. The perils of war had been about him, and the midnight assassin had watched his path; yet he died quietly in his bed."
- "What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause can ever be stilled by an assassin’s bullet."
- "Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee."
- "The Assassines, a nation depending of Phœnicia, are esteemed among the Mahometists of a soveraigne devotion and puritie of maners; they hold, that the readiest and shortest way to gaine Paradise, is to kill some one of a contrary religion[…]."
Etymology
From either French assassin or Italian assassino, from Arabic أَسَاسِيِّين (ʔasāsiyyīn, “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]”) and the folkloric etymology Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users; low-lives”). The mathematical sense was introduced by Bourbaki, playing on the notation operatorname Ass(M) and the fact that an associated prime is the annihilator of an element, and so is said to kill that element.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: ء س س, assassin, assassino, أَسَاسِيّ, حَشَّاشِين
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /əˈsæsɪn/