system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What factors determine if a person was 'assassinated' as opposed to 'murdered'?
gpt
All assassination is murder but not all murder is assassination.  Assassination is a higher caliber of murder.  This is done in two ways:

The target is a prominent political or public figure.

The motives are driven by some sort of ideological agenda - religious, political, military, financial gain, a desire to acquire fame or notoriety.

Like many words for similar overlapping concepts you can usually say a lot about their prestige based on their roots (their etymology).  

Murder comes into English through the Old German 'mord' (like many of our more common words such as 'leave'/'drink').  Assassination come from the Latin 'assassinus' (like many of our higher status words like 'relinquish'/'imbibe').  

So an assassination is a more prestigious form of murder.  Just as imbibing is a more prestigious form of drinking.