ambush. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

ambush

SYLLABICATION:	am·bush
PRONUNCIATION:	mbsh
NOUN:	1. The act of lying in wait to attack by surprise. 2. A sudden attack made from a concealed position. 3a. Those hiding in order to attack by surprise. b. The hiding place used for this. 4. A hidden peril or trap.
TRANSITIVE VERB:	Inflected forms: am·bushed, am·bush·ing, am·bush·es To attack from a concealed position.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English embush, from Old French embusche, from embuschier, to ambush, from Frankish ^*boscu, bush, woods.
OTHER FORMS:	ambusher —NOUN
SYNONYMS:	ambush, ambuscade, bushwhack, waylay These verbs mean to attack suddenly and without warning from a concealed place: guerrillas ambushing a platoon; highway robbers ambuscading a stagecoach; a patrol bushwhacked by poachers; a truck waylaid by robbers.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.