Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To force one's way through a forested or overgrown area where no path exists.
  • intransitive verb To travel through or live in the woods.
  • intransitive verb To fight as a guerrilla in the woods.
  • intransitive verb To attack suddenly from a place of concealment. synonym: ambush.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To act in the manner of a bushwhacker: sojourn in or beat about the bush
  • engage in guerrilla warfare and fire from behind the bushes.
  • To cut bushes with a bushwhacker.
  • To hunt clucks by approaching them in a boat which has a screen around it to conceal the occupants.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb to live in the bush as a fugitive or as a guerilla.
  • intransitive verb to cut one's way through the woods or bush.
  • transitive verb to lie in ambush for, lie in wait for.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to travel through thick wooded country, cutting away scrub to make progress
  • verb to fight, as a guerilla, especially in wooded country
  • verb to ambush

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb wait in hiding to attack
  • verb cut one's way through the woods or bush
  • verb live in the bush as a fugitive or as a guerilla

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "bushwhack" by rabblerowzer on Thursday, Jul 26, 2007 at 10: 00: 54 AM

    30 days to absolute tyranny 2007

  • While not positioned on actin in a way that readily converts to strong binding, Type 2 attachments are placed so that if they remained stationary while the actin target zone moved M-ward by 1 or 2 actin subunits, they would be positioned to "bushwhack" the target-zone actins and form Type 1 weak attachments (Supporting

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Shenping Wu et al. 2010

  • But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.

    What Makes a Great Teacher? 2010

  • But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.

    What Makes a Great Teacher? 2010

  • There was only one way to get into the area: land in a neighboring valley and bushwhack through a couple of thousand vertical feet of nasty terrain.

    The Ghost of Sheep River 2009

  • And the lesson learned on this odyssey was twofold: first, the treasures of solitude and eager trout are there for the asking if you're willing to hike, bushwhack, and sweat a bit; second, these fish still hang in a very fragile balance, and it's up to us to keep them.

    The Three-Day Cutt Slam... 2009

  • We bushwhack -- not barefoot -- over muddy streams and up through the tangle of vines and limbs, to the place where Marina waits.

    Valerie Tarico: Madagascar: West Knows Best 2010

  • Johnson's putter did not always cooperate, and he got into trouble with some of the bushwhack spots common to the U.S.

    Johnson's thoughts are on floods back home in Iowa 2008

  • It wasn't easy; I had to bushwhack, using my arms as machetes.

    Richard Bangs: Climbing the Killer Prince -- Merapi Volcano of Java, Part 1 Richard Bangs 2010

  • We bushwhack -- not barefoot -- over muddy streams and up through the tangle of vines and limbs, to the place where Marina waits.

    Valerie Tarico: Madagascar: West Knows Best 2010

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