Definition of "assail"

With greedy force he gan the fort assayle,Whereof he weend possesse soone to bee,And win rich spoile of ransackt chastitee.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, pages 76-77

[…] let us once again assail your ears,That are so fortified against our story,What we two nights have seen.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

“ […] for the next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!”

1897, Saki, “The Story-teller”, in Beasts and Super-beasts‎, London: John Lane, published 1914, page 238

We got married immediately after I finished my work […] which should have been the happiest day of my life. […] ¶ But, it was not my happiest day. I was assailed by doubts.

1942, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 14, in Dust Tracks on a Road‎, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, published 1969, page 258

He did not like being in crowds, foul smells galore assailing his nostrils.

2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow, Nairobo: East African Educational Publishers, Book 2, Chapter 3, p. 64