assaulting
- 1Present participle of assault.
Security footage showed him assaulting the cashier before fleeing.
Assaulting a referee got the player banned for the rest of the season.
Note
An -ing form that does double duty. As a participle it builds continuous tenses (she was assaulting him); as a gerund it names the act and can stand as a subject (assaulting anyone is a crime). Either way it is transitive, so its object follows directly with no preposition. It need not mean striking: the verb also covers threatening or harassing, and assault in law can be an attempt without any contact.
assaulting is a form of assault
assault, verb: To set upon and attack someone or something, whether with physical force or, figuratively, with a barrage of words. Full entry
- Spelling
- assault → assaulting: add -ing
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