onrush

1. 1.

   (military) an offensive against an enemy (using weapons)

   “the attack began at dawn”

   Synonymsattackonslaughtonset

   Broaderoperation

   Narrowerground attackchargebanzai attackdiversionpenetrationblitzstrikecounterattackbombingfire

   Partsassault

   military

2. 2.

   a forceful forward rush or flow

   “from the bow she stared at the mesmerising onrush of the sea where it split and foamed”

   “the explosion interrupted the wild onrush of her thoughts”

   Broaderrush

Other forms of onrush

plural

onrushes·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about onrush

What does onrush mean?

onrush means "(military) an offensive against an enemy (using weapons)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in onrush?

onrush has 2 syllables: on-rush. The stress falls on "on".

What is another word for onrush?

Close synonyms include attack, onslaught, onset. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is onrush a common word?

onrush is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.