assailable

adj

Etymology: Etymology tree English assail Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlis Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin -ābilis Old French -ablebor. Middle English -able English -able English assailable From assail + -able.

1. Able to be assailed or attacked.

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