attack

An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death of opponent or enemy.

An attempt to detract from the worth or credibility of, a person, position, idea, object, or thing, by physical, verbal, emotional, or other assault.

A time in which one attacks; the offence of a battle.

(informal, by extension) The beginning of active operations on anything.

(computing) An attempt to exploit a vulnerability in a computer system.

(cricket) Collectively, the bowlers of a cricket side.

(volleyball) Any contact with the ball other than a serve or block which sends the ball across the plane of the net.

(lacrosse) The three attackmen on the field or all the attackmen of a team.

(medicine) The sudden onset of a disease or condition.

An active episode of a chronic or recurrent disease.

(music) The onset of a musical note, particularly with respect to the strength (and duration) of that onset.

(audio) The amount of time it takes for the volume of an audio signal to go from zero to maximum level (e.g. an audio waveform representing a snare drum hit would feature a very fast attack, whereas that of a wave washing to shore would feature a slow attack).