Other forms: assailants
An assailant is somebody who attacks another person. The assailant fled, describe the assailant, an unknown assailant.
It is the word police and courts use before anybody is charged, because it names the role without naming a person — an unknown assailant. It implies a physical attack on a person rather than damage to property. Note assail, which survives mostly figuratively — assailed by doubts — and assault, which is the same Latin word and is the legal offence.
1nounassailantSomebody who attacks another person.
“The victim didn't see his assailant's face because it was dark.”
assailant is an attacker.
Old French assaillant comes from Latin assilire — ad plus salire, to leap. Salient, assault and somersault come from the same leaping, so an assailant leaps at you.
Latin
assaliō
Old French
assaillant
English, today
assailant
Built from
From Old French assaillant, from the verb assalir, from Latin assaliō, from Latin ad (“to, towards”) + saliō (“to jump”). Equivalent to assail + -ant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA