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
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
Amin MaaloufExamples 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
O'Brien lets out scream after scream as the mage burns the assassin alive.
—Nick Romano, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Dec. 2025
Some conservatives were outraged, arguing that Robertson was elderly, walked with a cane, and was not a plausible assassin.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2025
The easy praise for Death by Lightning goes to Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfadyen, who are excellent as President James Garfield and Garfield’s unmoored, overexuberant assassin, Charles Guiteau, respectively.
—Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
In the first film, Dan’s former life as a covert assassin catches up to him, prompting a last-minute family road trip across the United States.
—Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 29 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for assassin
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Nick Romano, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Dec. 2025
Some conservatives were outraged, arguing that Robertson was elderly, walked with a cane, and was not a plausible assassin.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2025
The easy praise for Death by Lightning goes to Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfadyen, who are excellent as President James Garfield and Garfield’s unmoored, overexuberant assassin, Charles Guiteau, respectively.
—Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
In the first film, Dan’s former life as a covert assassin catches up to him, prompting a last-minute family road trip across the United States.
—Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 29 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for assassin
Cite this Entry
“Assassin.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assassin. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
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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
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