Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An ambush.
- transitive verb To attack suddenly and without warning from a concealed place; ambush.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A lying in wait and concealment for the purpose of attacking by surprise; an ambush.
- noun A secret station in which troops lie concealed with a view to attacking suddenly and by surprise; an ambush.
- noun A body of troops lying in ambush.
- To attack from a concealed position.
- To lie in ambush: as, “ambuscading ways,”
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To lie in ambush.
- noun A lying in a wood, concealed, for the purpose of attacking an enemy by surprise. Hence: A lying in wait, and concealed in any situation, for a like purpose; a snare laid for an enemy; an ambush.
- noun rare A place in which troops lie hid, to attack an enemy unexpectedly.
- noun (Mil.) The body of troops lying in ambush.
- transitive verb To post or conceal in ambush; to ambush.
- transitive verb To lie in wait for, or to attack from a covert or lurking place; to waylay.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun dated An
ambush ; a trap laid for anenemy . - verb dated To lie in wait for, or to attack from a
covert orlurking place; towaylay .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise
- verb wait in hiding to attack
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ambuscade.
Examples
-
Wherefore, then, did he steal in ambuscade into my palace, but to betray either my honor or my life, – perhaps both!
The Scottish Chiefs 1875
-
The Amalekites and Canaanites, who had been lying in ambuscade expecting their movement, rushed down upon them from the heights and became the instruments of punishing their guilty rebellion.
-
Lord Beaufort surprised them by a clever ambuscade from the stable wall; he told Mary he had been quite mistaken and wrong in what he had asserted, and he was sorry that she had overheard it.
-
Mr Campion shuddered to think of the kind of ambuscade Uncle William might have arranged had he ever conceived the idea of such a method of shelving the suspicion against him.
Police at the Funeral Allingham, Margery, 1904-1966 1931
-
Mr Campion shuddered to think of the kind of ambuscade Uncle William might have arranged had he ever conceived the idea of such a method of shelving the suspicion against him.
Police at the Funeral Allingham, Margery, 1904-1966 1931
-
He had another encounter with the wild-dog, who treacherously attacked him in flank from ambuscade.
CHAPTER III 2010
-
They were going down the path, directly beneath the ambuscade!
-
It was a troubled time, with the world upside down, and we scratching with our fingernails to hold the Ruskis back by foray and ambuscade; in such disorders, anything is possible, even a woman fighting-chief.
The Sky Writer Geoff Barbanell 2010
-
When a few weeks later it was reported in the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an open secret that McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.
Chennai 2010
-
If you are still reading this and have not clicked over to Blogger #2145's latest Sarah Palin ambuscade, you may suspect this blog falls within the parameters of The Most Fascinating Person I Have Known or A Teacher Who Changed My Life and you would be right on both counts.
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ambuscade
Just a so-much-cooler way to say 'ambush'.
August 18, 2008
jaime_d commented on the word ambuscade
from Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus"
January 11, 2009