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assassin

as·sas·sin

UK/əˈsæsɪn/ US/ʌˈsæsʌn/ fairly common

noun

1.

a murderer (especially one who kills a prominent political figure) who kills by a treacherous surprise attack and often is hired to do the deed

  • “his assassins were hunted down like animals”
  • “assassinators of kings and emperors”
Synonyms
2.

a member of a secret order of Muslims (founded in the 12th century) who terroriszed and killed Christian Crusaders

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • assassin bug
  • assassin fly
  • assassin spider
  • bee assassin
  • Great Assassin
  • smiling assassin

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.