Assassin
Ultimately from Arabic hashsha, “dried up”. Derived from this was hashish, “powdered hemp”, and a user of powdered hemp was a hashishiyy. During the time of the Crusades, a notorious Mulsim sect under the leadership of Hasan ibu-al-Sabah became widely known for intoxicating themselves with hemp and murdering their political and religious opponents; they were known as the Hashishiyyin, the “hashish-users”. Such was their infamy that tales of their exploits were carried back to Europe with the returning Crusaders, along with their name, distorted through Italian and French into assassin. The word entered English in the early 1500’s.
The primary syllable of assassin is “sass”, with its balanced, sensual, directed power. The syllable afterwards, “in”, indicates that the energy is narrowed toward a target. It’s a marvelous thing to find a word that so obviously fits its meaning so perfectly!
