attacks

noun

An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death of an opponent or enemy.

An attempt to detract from the worth or credibility of, a person, position, idea, object, or thing, by physical, verbal, emotional, or other assault.

(gaming) Any of several specific maneuvers, skills, or special abilities that a character can use to inflict damage against opponents.

(computing) An attempt to exploit a vulnerability in a computer system.

(informal, by extension) The beginning of active operations on anything.

A time in which one attacks; the offence of a battle.

(medicine) The sudden onset of a disease or condition.

An active episode of a chronic or recurrent disease.

(music) The onset of a musical note, particularly with respect to the strength (and duration) of that onset.

(audio) The amount of time taken for the volume of an audio signal to go from zero to maximum level (e.g. an audio waveform representing a snare drum hit would feature a very fast attack, whereas that of a wave washing to shore would feature a slow attack).

(oenology) The initial sensory impact of a wine.

(cricket) Collectively, the bowlers of a cricket side.

(volleyball) Any contact with the ball other than a serve or block which sends the ball across the plane of the net.

(lacrosse) The three attackmen on the field or all the attackmen of a team.

(South India) Short for heart attack. [(cardiology, pathology) An acute myocardial infarction, sometimes fatal, caused by the sudden occurrence of coronary thrombosis, which obstructs the blood supply to the heart and leads to necrosis of heart muscle tissue.]

verb

(transitive) To apply violent force to someone or something.

(transitive) To aggressively challenge a person, idea, etc., with words (particularly in newspaper headlines, because it typesets into less space than "criticize" or similar).

(transitive) To begin to affect; to act upon injuriously or destructively; to begin to decompose or waste.

(transitive) To deal with something in a direct way; to set to work upon.

(soccer) To move forward in an active attempt to score a point, as opposed to trying not to concede.

(cycling) To accelerate quickly in an attempt to get ahead of the other riders.

(intransitive, cricket) To set a field, or bowl in a manner designed to get wickets.

(intransitive, cricket) To bat aggressively, so as to score runs quickly.

(transitive, cricket) To aim balls at the batsman’s wicket.

(physical chemistry) (Of a chemical species) To approach a chemical species or bond in order to form a bond with it.

adjective

Designed or kept for the purpose of confrontation.

Synonyms & related words for attacks

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Words related to attacks

Explore words related to attacks — words associated with it, words that go with it, and its nearest matches in meaning. Related words include assault, assail, onslaught, aggress, onrush, attacking, pregnability, attacked. Click any word to make it the center of the map and keep exploring the web of connections.