In law, you can commit assault without ever touching anyone
Traditional common law draws a sharp line: battery is the unwanted contact, while assault is the credible threat or attempt that makes someone fear it. A raised fist can be enough. Many places later merged the two, so everyday usage and legal definitions now point in different directions depending on where you stand.
Assault is both a crime and a civil wrong, so one act can lead to prosecution, a lawsuit, or both, and common law generally defines it the same way in each setting. It may involve a weapon or none, and ranges from actual violence to menacing words. Several legal systems stress the intentional creation of fear or apprehension as its core.
The split between assault and battery is a common law habit. Some jurisdictions fused them into a single offence of assault and battery, later shortened to assault, so the word drifted toward the old meaning of battery. Civil law countries and Scotland never made the distinction in the first place.
Severity shapes the charge. In the United States assault can be a misdemeanour or a felony. England and Wales and Australia distinguish common assault, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm, and Canada has its own three levels ending in aggravated assault. Aggravated versions often involve a deadly weapon, attacks on police or public servants, or reckless driving in road rage. Separate charges cover sexual assault and affray, and an attack meant to kill may be prosecuted as attempted murder.
Defences are where things get interesting. Ordinary social contact is excused as trivial, and consent can be a defence, though England refuses it for serious injury without a recognised good reason such as surgery or play within a sport's rules; the Operation Spanner case turned on this point. Police and court officers may use reasonable force in their duties. In several countries, parents' reasonable physical punishment of children is not treated as assault, although English law limits that defence to common assault, and Wales abolished it in 2022.
Source: Assault
