onslaught
Americannoun
-
onslaughts
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of onslaught
1615–25; < Dutch aanslag a striking, (earlier) attack (equivalent to aan on + slag blow, stroke; akin to slay ), with assimilation to obsolete slaught slaughter
Explanation
Onslaught is a military term that refers to an attack against an enemy. It's safe to say that no one wants to be caught on the receiving end of an onslaught, because there will be lots of danger, destruction and probably death. One way to help you remember the brutal meaning of onslaught is through the word's English origin, slaught, meaning "slaughter." But onslaught can be used in non-military ways, too. It can mean a barrage of written or spoken communication, like an onslaught of emailed birthday wishes. Taken individually, the birthday wishes are nice but an onslaught is too many, too fast, all at once. Onslaught can also mean a sudden and severe start of trouble. For example, if your office is unprepared for the onslaught of flu season, the entire sales force will be home sick at the same time.
Vocabulary lists containing onslaught
Words from "The Avengers"
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Franklin D. Roosevelt, "A Date That Will Live In Infamy" (1941)
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"The Diary of Anne Frank," Vocabulary from the drama
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That South African onslaught came from the off.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
Ratko Mladic, the so-called "butcher of Bosnia" who has reportedly died at the age of either 83 or 84, had insisted he was chosen by "fate" to defend the Serb people from a Western onslaught.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
Life was an onslaught of bright lights, loud noises, intolerable textures and tastes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
His intentional balance of silence and audio amplifies one of the movie’s most famous moments, Adenoid Hynkel’s gibberish speech, into a bombastic, hilarious aural onslaught.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2026
But was this flight or was it onslaught?
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
In October, the South American country unveiled its first drone battalion to counterattack and defend against drone onslaughts.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
One drone he pilots can throw up an effective cloak of invisibility against electronic onslaughts, but others he has trained on don’t hold up well in that domain, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2025
And in this form, it looks unlikely that Rockets' bowlers will be the only ones on the receiving end of their onslaughts over the next month.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2023
"This funding is critical to stopping those onslaughts, hardening Ukraine’s cyber defences and increasing the country’s ability to detect and disable the malware targeted at them."
From Reuters ● Jun. 18, 2023
And, in fact, Bobby had diligently prepared for his opponent’s onslaughts.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
