assassination

American  

[uh-sas-uh-ney-shuhn] / əˌsæs əˈneɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the premeditated act of killing someone suddenly or secretively, especially a prominent person.

   The meticulous way in which the journalist's assassination was carried out has led to suspicions that his killers were professionals working for state security.

2. the act of destroying or harming treacherously and viciously.

   They went after me with everything they had, engaging in character assassination and in destroying my reputation—a complete fabrication and frame-up.

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Other Word Forms

• counterassassination
  noun

Etymology

Origin of assassination

assassin(ate) ( def. ) + -ation ( def. )

Explanation

An assassination is the murder of a public figure. Assassinations are usually politically motivated. If someone kills your dog, that’s not an assassination, that’s just murder (unless your dog was running for mayor). A murder is the unjust, illegal killing of someone. An assassination is a type of murder in which the victim is someone well known, usually in the world of politics. The killings of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinations: their purpose was to destabilize the government and hurt the civil rights movement, respectively. As assassination is murder plus politics.

Related Words

• bloodshed
• crime
• destruction
• felony
• homicide
• lynching
• manslaughter
• massacre
• shooting
• slaying
• terrorism