assassin

noun

as·​sas·​sin ə-ˈsa-sᵊn 

plural assassins

1

: a person who commits murder

especially : one who murders a politically prominent person either for money or from fanatical adherence to a cause

… the location of the victim's gunshot wounds … might point to a professional assassin.

—Wendy Fry

2

Assassin plural Assassins, history : a person belonging to a Shia Muslim sect during the time of the Crusades whose members were notorious for murdering prominent enemies

For a third of a century, no enemy of the Assassins had ever managed to elude them.

—Amin Maalouf

Synonyms of assassin

• murderer
• killer

Examples of assassin in a Sentence

John Wilkes Booth was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

shot down by an unknown assassin

Recent Examples on the Web

When a father seeking vengeance, an American operative experiencing a string of bad luck, and several independent assassins hailing from around the world all end up on the same bullet train bound for Kyoto, the results are violent — and the survivors minimal. —Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 26 Dec. 2025

Fast forward to September, Kimmel was suspended by ABC and Nexstar for six days after making misleading remarks about the assassin of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk on air. —David Zimmermann, The Washington Examiner, 25 Dec. 2025

Actors portraying Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were among the mourners, along with a portrayal of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, FOX 10 reported. —Sophia Compton, FOXNews.com, 22 Dec. 2025

The titular story is about an assassin who is having an extremely bureaucratic exchange with a recruit, explaining to him how best to arrange a tableau of dead bodies for maximum aesthetic effect. —The New Yorker, New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Medieval Latin assassinus, from Arabic ḥashshāshīn, plural of ḥashshāsh worthless person, literally, hashish user, from hashīsh hashish

First Known Use

circa 1520, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Phrases Containing assassin

• assassin bug

Rhymes for assassin

• unfasten
• bason
• casson
• fasten
• cytochalasin
• diapason

Kids Definition

assassin

noun

as·​sas·​sin ə-ˈsas-ən 

: a person who kills another person

especially : one who murders a politically important person either for pay or from loyalty to a cause