Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Assassin |
AssassinNoun1. 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". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "assassin" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | If you are the one to receive the assassin's blow, you will not surmount all your trials. To see another, with the assassin standing over him with blood stains, portends that misfortune will come to the dreamer. To see an assassin under any condition is a warning that losses may befall you through secret enemies. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The term assassin is derived from the Arabic Hashshashin, describing medieval caravan raiders based in Alamut. See that article for details of the group.
In its most common use, assassin has come to mean someone who kills (assassinates) people selectively, usually for political reasons. The immediate motivation of an assassin may be money (in the case of a hit man), personal belief, orders from a government, or loyalty to a leader or group. Assassins are distinguished from snipers, or other soldiers who may employ the same methods, in that the latter are engaged in declared war between nation-states. The distinction blurs when a sniper, soldier, or spy is given a specific target, or if the orders come through unofficial channels. Terms such as death squad came into use to describe such unofficial killing.
The definition of an "assassin", as with "spy" or "terrorist", is politically loaded, and most commentators do not believe it has an objective definition.
Political killings are thus usually referred to as "assassinations" as it is difficult to distinguish motivations (money or loyalty, usually some of both being involved) for a clandestine act, or "covert action", in the parlance of military intelligence.
Entire organizations have sometimes specialized in assassination as one of their services. Besides the original Hashishim, the ninja clans of Japan were rumored to perform assassinations. In the United States, Murder Incorporated, an organization with ties to the Mafia, was formed for the sole purpose of performing assassinations for organized crime.
Before a United States executive order by President Gerald Ford in 1976, the United States federal government, in particular its Central Intelligence Agency, trained, hired, and employed assassins. The ban in 1976 came "following revelations by the Church Committee of CIA involvement in planned or actual assassinations of, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, Chilean President Salvador Allende, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo, and Che Guevara." (Human Rights Watch)
It was deemed at that time that the liability of engaging in this activity led in general to a reduced level of personal security for elected leaders of democratic countries, who are in general much more vulnerable to retaliation. President Ford himself had been the target of two assassination attempts within 18 days of each other in 1975, although the attempted assassins' motives were not deemed to be financial or political. The still-controversial assassination of President John F. Kennedy thirteen years earlier in 1963 may also have been a factor in President Ford's executive order.
For democratic nation-states to claim to be better rulers than their less democratic opponents, they could not seem to be employing any assassin against leaders of political movements--thus acknowledging inability to compete with their leadership ideologically--a fatal weakness for any democratic government.
The public pose of democratic governments in general, with the notable exception of the state of Israel, was to disdain "trial, conviction, and death by intelligence." (Anonymous US military officer).
Also, as CIA spokesman Bill Harlow asserted in 2001, "The CIA has never turned down a field request to recruit an asset in a terrorist organization." Such groups are known to execute people in custody, attack civilians, and employ banned weapons, raising the issue of whether the CIA or other nation-state military intelligence agencies recruiting them are morally liable for these actions, especially if they are committed after recruitment.
Some questioned whether the United States had avoided employing its own troops simply to avoid taking casualties -- and over-exposing its opponents, the Afghan Taliban, to atrocities from its Afghan Northern Alliance allies, their bitter enemies. The issue in general got little attention.
Patricia Zengel, in "Assassination and the Law of Armed Conflict", 1991, is summarized by Calder as concluding "...that there is no longer any convincing justification for retaining a unique rule of international law that treats assassination apart from other uses of force."
This conclusion is controversial, obviously, and rarely stated in public. The debate on the definition and use of the term "assassin" is inseparable from the similar debates surrounding freedom fighter, terrorist, guerilla, spy, saboteur, provocateur, double agent and other terms which are commonly used to describe players in asymmetric warfare. It is only seemingly neutral when no loyalty or political motive is claimed or assumed, and only money motivates.
See also: List of assassins, List of assassinated persons, Hashshashin, assassination market, asymmetric warfare, terrorism, espionage.
Assassins is also the name of a musical by Stephen Sondheim; see Assassins (musical).
The Assassin is a Prestige class in the computer game, Shadows of Undrentide, which is built using Dungeons & Dragons; see Assassin (D&D).Employed to promote policy
It has been common to the politics of most cultures to use strategic killings as a tool of policy, in particular to win or avoid wars, and paid killers have always been felt necessary to this practice.Profit motive
Individually, too, people have always found their reasons to arrange the deaths of others through paid intermediaries. The term "hired killer" or "hitman" is most often used to distinguish an assassin with no political motive or group loyalty, killing only for money.Political motive
As there are few or no assassins who would kill friends or family strictly for money, it is argued, most could be said to have a political motive, or at least some significant inhibitions based on political or personal loyalty.Moral high ground
Beyond this practical concern, there was the issue of moral equivalence: no state that deliberately trained, hired, sanctioned or harbored an assassin operating outside the rules of war could reasonably expect support even from its allies when caught--particularly those allies suffering "terrorism" against civilian targets, also outside the rules of war.Assassination as military doctrine
The general view among most military analysts is that assassination has little utility as a military tactic. There is a belief that military and political systems are resistant against the loss of individuals and killing targeted individuals does not reduce the general ability of the military to fight. Moreover, assassination contains the risk that it will eliminate the political and military leaders who can negotiate and conduct a surrender, making it more difficult to achieve a military victory.Killers by proxy
However, the practice of training, hiring, and harboring assassins remained a common practice of many democratic governments and most undemocratic leaders through the 1990s. The School of the Americas, operated by the United States at Fort Benning, Georgia, trained many individuals from Latin American nations in the exact techniques that were no longer legal for Americans to employ. Israel employed weapons from the United States to attack specific individuals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who it believed sponsored suicide attacks. An assassin could be armed, trained, hired, hidden and harbored--but not openly and directly--by a developed nation.Executions in custody
Current "international humanitarian and human rights law, as well as U.S. military and police doctrine, flatly prohibit executing anyone in actual or effective custody or targeting anyone who is not a combatant. To flout this prohibition during armed conflict would be a war crime." (Human Rights Watch, September 20, 2001).Just another soldier?
However, during the 2001 Afghanistan War, local troops equipped, fed, and in some cases paid by the United States executed prisoners in their custody -- without sanction -- raising the question of moral and legal liability for this.External links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Assassin."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
ASSASSIN | English | Agricultural System for Storage and Subsequent Selection of Information | Food & Agriculture, Information |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: AssassinSynonyms: assassinator (n), bravo (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Destroyer | Noun: destroyer; (destroy; ); cankerworm; (bane); assassin; (killer); executioner; (punish); biblioclast, eidoloclast, iconoclast, idoloclast; nihilist. |
Killing | Butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner. (punishment); man-eater, apache, hatchet man, highbinder. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Assassin |
| English words defined with "assassin": booth ♦ family Reduviidae ♦ Hackster ♦ John Wilkes Booth ♦ Lee Harvey Oswald ♦ Oswald ♦ Reduviidae. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "assassin": Accordion ♦ Nevers ♦ respite ♦ Triatominae ♦ Youth. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Assassin" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (assassin, atrocious, bloodthirsty, butcher, cut throat, killer, murderer). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Leary's an assassin. (In the Line of Fire; writing credit: Jeff Maguire) Well maybe the world's lending libraries will band together and hire an assassin! (Death on the Nile; writing credit: Agatha Christie; Anthony Shaffer) The first assassin kills the second assassin sent to kill the first assassin, who didn't assassinate anyone until we hired the second assassin to assassinate the first assassin. (Angel; writing credit: Letcia Dornelles) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Assassin (1973) The Assassin (1968) L' Assassin connaît la musique... (1963) The Lamp in Assassin Mews (1962) L' Assassin viendra ce soir (1962) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
High Tech |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The hired assassin : the Philippine Tariff bill was killed in the Senate February 26, 1906. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Leon F. Czolgosz, the assassin. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Composite photograph consisting of two photographs of Jack Ruby's certificates of accomplishment from the Army Air Forces; one group portrait of Jack Ruby (l) and others; and one photograph of a letter, probably from a child, following Mr. Ruby's assassin. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | We must say, however, by the way, that there is yet a deep gulf between this race of men and the hideous assassin of the city. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Human Rights | Bangladesh | In 1995 the Government charged former President Hossain Mohammad Ershad with ordering the 1981 murder of the alleged assassin of President Ziaur Rahman. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Assassin" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.00% of the time. "Assassin" is used about 301 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99% | 298 | 16,826 |
| Noun (proper) | 1% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 301 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "assassin": assassin bug ♦ hired assassin ♦ paid assassin. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "assassin": chara-assassin. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "assassin"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | vrasës (cutthroat, homicidal, homicide, killer, killing, murderer, murderous, slaughterous, slayer, suicidal). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | قاتل (battle, combat, deadly, engage, fight, killer, lethal, manslayer, murdered, murderer, murderous, vital, war), القاتل (homicide, killer), الحشاش, السفاك (butcher, thug). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | терорист (assassinator, bullyboy, hatchet man, terrorist). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 兇手 (assailant, murderer), 刺客. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | atentátník, vrah (cutthroat, homicide, murderer, slaughterer, slayer, thug). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | قاتل (Bane, Cutthroat, Deadly, Killer, Murderer, Slayer, Thug), ادمکش (Cutthroat). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | salamurhaaja, murhamies (cut-throat, murderer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | assassin. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | mörder (homicide, killer, murder, murderer, murderers, slayer), attentäter (assassins, would-be assassin). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | δολοφόνοσ (murderer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מת קש (assailant), מרצח (killer, murderer), רוצח (cutthroat, homicide, killer, murderer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | merénylő. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | pembunuh (cuttroath, killer, murderer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | assassino (cutthroat, grueling, gruellingly, killer, killing, murderer, murderous, slayer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 暗殺者 , 兇漢 (outlaw, villain), 兇手 , 凶漢 (outlaw, villain), 凶手 , アクリル繊維 (accommodator, accord, accordion, accordion door, accordion pleats, achromatic lens, acid, acidosis, acoustic, acoustic guitar, acoustic sound, acrobat, acrobatic, acrobatic dance, acrobatic dancer, acropolis, acrylic fiber, acrylonitrile, against, against wind, agglomeration, aggressive, agitation, agoraphobia, agreement, agribusiness, agriculture, Asia, Asia dollar, aside, assault, assert, assertiveness training, assign, assignment, assist, assistance, assistant, assistant director, assistant manager, assistant purser, asymmetric design, asymmetry, contortionist, to instigate, to stir up), 刺客 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | しきゃく, しかく (blind spot, capabilities, dead space, qualifications, requirements, sense of sight, square, vision, visual angle), きょうしゅ (being idle, exposure of a severed head, folding one's arms, founder of a religious sect, interest), きょうか" (between the mountains, breast, chest, ferocity, heinousness, instructor, mirror, one's hometown, outlaw, paragon, professor, response, scream, shout, sympathy, teacher, villain), あ"さつしゃ, アサシン . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 자객. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | dunver (killer, murderer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Norwegian | snikmorder. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | assassinay assassino (cutthroat, felon, goon, homicide, killer, killing, murderer, murderous, slayer, thug), homicida (felon, homicidal, homicide, murderer, murderess, murderous). (various references) asasin (cut throat, homicide, killer, murderer, thug), ucigaş (bloodthirsty, bravo, choker, cut throat, deadly, fatal, felon, homicidal, homicide, killer, murderer, murderous, sanguinary, thug). (various references) убийца (assissin, basher, gorilla, homicide, killer, knifeman, murderer, murderess, slayer, thug). (various references) atentator (assassinator), ubica (assassinator, cain, killer, murderer, slayer). (various references) asesino (cutthroat, killer, murderer, murderous, slaughterer, slayer). (various references) mördare (cut throat, cutthroat, cut-throat, homicide, killer, murderer), lönnmördare (assasin). (various references) ผู้ร้ายที่ลอบฆ่า. (various references) suikâstçi (bravo, conspirator), kiralık katil (bravo, goon, hatchet man, hired killer, hit man), katil (cutthroat, homicide, killer, murderer, murderess, slaughterer, slayer, thug, Thumper). (various references) убивця політичного діяча (assassinator), найманий убивця (assassinator, wiper). (various references) kẻ ám sát (assassinator). (various references) llofrudd (murderer), bradlofrudd. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | interfector, interfectorem, interfectores, interfectoris, interfectorum, interfectrix, percussor, percussorem, percussoribus, percussoris. (various references) |
| Arabic | 500-Modern | hashshashin. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "assassin": assassinate, assassinated, assassinates, assassinating, assassination, assassinations, assassinator, assassinators, assassins. (additional references) | |
| |
"Assassin" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: asasin, asassin, assasain, assasin, assasins, assassi, assassing, assassino, assisin, Hassassa. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "assassin" (pronounced usa"sun) |
| 4 | -a" s u n | fasten. |
| 3 | -s u n | aflatoxin, angiotensin, antitoxin, arson, basin, bison, bolson, businessperson, capsaicin, chairperson, chasten, christen, claxon, comparison, congressperson, damson, delicatessen, diocesan, dioxin, Dobson, ensign, garrison, Gibson, glisten, hasten, Hyson, jettison, keelson, kelson, layperson, lessen, lesson, listen, loosen, Mason, medicine, moisten, myosin, Nelson, newsperson, oxen, oxytocin, parson, person, rechristen, rhodopsin, salesperson, spokesperson, toxin, unison, venison, washbasin, weatherperson, worsen. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-i-n-s-s-s-s" | |
-2 letters: assais, sasins. | |
-3 letters: assai, sains, sasin. | |
-4 letters: ains, anas, anis, ansa, sain, sans, sass, sins. | |
-5 letters: aas, ain, ais, ana, ani, ass, ins, sin, sis. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-i-n-s-s-s-s" | |
+1 letter: assassins. | |
+2 letters: assistants. | |
+3 letters: assassinate, assistances. | |
+4 letters: assassinated, assassinates, assassinator. | |
+5 letters: assassinating, assassination, assassinators, assistantship, sagaciousness, salaciousness, salesmanships, synaesthesias. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 73 73 61 73 73 69 6E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
|
| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
|
| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
|
Morse Code (1836) (references).- ... ... .- ... ... .. -. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01110011 01110011 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101110 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A s s a s s i n |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 0073 0073 0061 0073 0073 0069 006E |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
|
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3585856785857580 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Abbreviations 16. Acronyms | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Orthography | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
