Black's Law dictionary defines criminal and tortious assault as "the threat or use of force on another that causes that person to have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact; the act of putting another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of an immediate battery by means of an act amounting to an attempt or threat to commit a battery." Assault is a very broad crime and there are various forms of assault, including (but not limited to) civil assault, assault by contact, sexual assault, simple assault, and aggravated assault. Though nowadays it is common to use the term "assault and battery" as if it were one crime, the terms are separate and distinct legal concepts.[1] Assault refers specifically to demonstration of an unlawful intent to inflict immediate injury of offensive contact on another, whereas battery involves the actual act of contact with another. Thus, assault is the beginning of the act which, if consummated, results in battery.[2]