Added 9 October 2026
assassin
/əˈsæsɪn/ noun
In Latin: assassinus Wiktionary
noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about assassin at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
verb
- To assassinate.
Origin
From either French assassin or Italian assassino, from Arabic أَسَاسِيِّين (ʔasāsiyyīn, “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]”) and the folkloric etymology Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users; low-lives”). The mathematical sense was introduced by Bourbaki, playing on the notation operatorname Ass(M) and the fact that an associated prime is the annihilator of an element, and so is said to kill that element.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)