Assault - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition assault

Definition :

Assault [fr. salire, Lat., to leap; saillir, assaillir, Fr., to assai]; insultus, Lat.], an attempt to offer, with force and violence, to do a corporal hurt to another, as by striking at him with or without a weapon. No words, how provoking so ever they be, will amount to an assault. Assault does not always necessarily imply a hitting or blow; because, in trespass for assault and battery, a person may be found guilty of the assault, but not guilty of the battery. But battery always includes an assault, 1 Hawk. P. C. c. lxii., s. 1.

The various kinds of assault are successively dealt with and made punishable by ss. 36-47 and ss. 52 and 62 (indecent assaults) of the (English) Offences against the Person Act, 1861. By s. 47 an assault occasioning actual bodily harm is punishable on indictment by penal servitude for not less than three, or imprisonment for not more than two year, and a common assault by imprisonment for not more than one year; but by s. 42 common assaults are summarily triable by two justices, and by them punishable by not more than two months' imprisonment or by not more than 5l. fine. As to 'aggravated' assault on a boy under 14 or any woman, see AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS, and see generally Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Criminal law (Offences against Person),' and notes.

In criminal law means, an attempt to commit battery, requiring the specific intent to cause physical injury, Black Law Dictionary 7th Edn., p. 109.