Link Centre Dictionary

onslaught

ons·laught

UK/ˈɒn.slɔːt/ US/ˈɔnsloːt/ uncommon

noun

1.
2.

(military) an offensive against an enemy (using weapons)

  • “the attack began at dawn”
3.

the rapid and continuous delivery of linguistic communication (spoken or written)

  • “a barrage of questions”
  • “a bombardment of mail complaining about his mistake”

Origin

From on- + slaught. Formed after Middle Dutch aenslag, aenslach, equivalent to aen + slag, although slaught corresponds to Middle Dutch slacht; slag is cognate with the English weaving term sley. Compare Dutch aanslag and German Anschlag.

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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.