Definition of "attack" in English

noun

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

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

   • They claimed the censorship of the article was an attack on free speech.

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

   • The army timed their attack to coincide with the local celebrations.

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

   • Having washed the plates from dinner, I made an attack on the laundry.

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

   • birthday attack; denial-of-service attack

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

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

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

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

   • I've had an attack of the flu.

10. An active episode of a chronic or recurrent disease.

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

12. (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).

13. (oenology) The initial sensory impact of a wine.

14. (South India) Short for heart attack.

verb

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

   • This species of snake will only attack humans if it feels threatened.

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

   • She published an article attacking the recent pay cuts.

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

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

   • We’ll have dinner before we attack the biology homework.
   • I attacked the meal with a hearty appetite.