different between unassailable vs assailable

English

Etymology

un- +? assailable

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??se?l?bl?/

Adjective

unassailable (comparative more unassailable, superlative most unassailable)

1. Secure against attack; impregnable.
2. (by extension) Undeniable, incontestable or incontrovertible.

   Synonyms: incontestable, unopposable, impregnable, invulnerable

Derived terms

• unassailably
• unassailableness

Translations

Noun

unassailable (plural unassailables)

1. Something, such as a belief, that cannot be assailed.

English

Etymology

assail +? -able.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??se?l?bl?/

Adjective

assailable (comparative more assailable, superlative most assailable)

1. Able to be assailed or attacked.

   Synonyms: exposed, vulnerable, pregnable, susceptible

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene 2,^[1]

     There’s comfort yet; they [Banquo and Fleance] are assailable; / Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown / His cloister’d flight […] there shall be done / A deed of dreadful note.

   • 1791, Hannah Brand, Huniades, or, The siege of Belgrave, Act IV, Scene 3, in Plays and Poems, Norwich, 1798, p. 82,^[2]

     Plant the ordnance ’gainst the postern, / North of the Eastern tower; for there I deem / The wall is most assailable.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, New York: Harper, Chapter 41, p. 203,^[3]

     All that most maddens and torments?; all that stirs up the lees of things?; all truth with malice in it?; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain?; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought?; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.

Related terms

• unassailable