ambush

Pluralambushes

Formsambushes, ambushing, ambushed

1. 1
   surprise attacknouncountable

   An attack launched on someone or something from a hidden position.

   Three police officers were wounded in an ambush outside the village last night.

   A leopard's ambush from the tall grass is usually over in seconds.

   Note

   Here the word names the strike itself, a single event that can be counted and placed: an ambush outside the village, two ambushes in a week. Milton sets it among the ways a stronghold falls in Paradise Lost (1667), where heaven's walls 'fear no assault or siege / Or ambush from the deep.' The waiting that comes before the strike belongs to the hidden position.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To make a surprise attack on someone or something from a place where the attackers have been lying in wait.

   Insurgents ambush supply trucks on that stretch of highway almost every week.

   A fearless young team ambushed the world champions in the opening twenty minutes.

   Similarjump

   Note

   The verb turns passive easily when the story is told from the victim's side: the convoy was ambushed. Barney Ronay's 2018 report on Mexico against the world champions Germany has Löw's team 'ambushed here' in the opening 40 minutes, though nobody had hidden anywhere. The surprise survives without the cover. Jump is a blunter synonym for the same move.

3. 3
   lying in waitnoununcountable

   A hidden position, or the state of being hidden, from which a surprise attack is launched.

   Photographers waited in ambush outside the hotel, hoping to catch the actor leaving through the back door.

   A crocodile can lie in ambush just below the surface for hours.

   Note

   This sense lives in a set phrase with no article: lie in ambush, wait in ambush. Marlowe's Tartarian thieves 'lie in ambush' in Tamburlaine the Great, and in Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary (1922) the plan is to 'wait in ambush' for Conrad behind a door. The phrase has barely moved in over three centuries, and the verbs that go with it are verbs of stillness.

4. 4
   lying in waitnouncountable or uncountable

   The act of hiding and lying in wait in order to attack or kill someone by surprise.

   Tigers rely on ambush rather than long chases, creeping close under cover before they strike.

   The rebels' ambush along the ridge lasted until dawn, but the patrol never came.

   Note

   Hiding is built into the word. Middle English enbuschen came from Old French enbuscier, which joins en- to Vulgar Latin boscus, 'wood', itself from a Frankish word for bush, so the picture underneath is of someone tucked into the undergrowth. French formed the verb first and drew its noun, embusche, from it. Bouquet grows from the same boscus, and ambuscade is a close relative.

5. 5
   hidden attackersnouncountable

   The troops posted out of sight to attack by surprise, or more generally anyone lying in wait.

   The ambush held its fire until the lead vehicle had crossed the bridge.

   Scouts warned the column that an ambush of fifty men was waiting in the woods.

   Note

   Soldiers become the ambush in this sense, and the word can treat them as one body or as many. The King James Bible of 1611 goes plural: 'the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ranne.' 'The ambush held its fire' keeps it singular. Either agreement is correct; pick one and hold it through the sentence.

6. 6
   place troopsverbtransitive

   To station people in a hidden position so that they can surprise an enemy.

   By ambuſh’d men, behind their Temple laid, / VVe have the King of Mexico betray’d.

   1665, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour

   Note

   The object is one's own side: you ambush soldiers by posting them out of sight. Dryden's The Indian Emperour (1665) shows the result in 'By ambush'd men, behind their Temple laid, / We have the King of Mexico betray'd,' where the ambushed men are the hidden attackers. Under the 'waylay' meaning the same participle names the people caught, so only context tells which side of the trap is meant.

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