AMBUSH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does ambush mean? 

• AMBUSH (noun)
  The noun AMBUSH has 1 sense:

1. the act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise

  Familiarity information: AMBUSH used as a noun is very rare.

• AMBUSH (verb)
  The verb AMBUSH has 2 senses:

1. wait in hiding to attack

2. hunt (quarry) by stalking and ambushing

  Familiarity information: AMBUSH used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AMBUSH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

ambuscade; ambush; lying in wait; trap

Hypernyms ("ambush" is a kind of...):

coup de main; surprise attack (an attack without warning)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ambush"):

dry-gulching (the act of killing from ambush)

Derivation:

ambush (wait in hiding to attack)

ambush (hunt (quarry) by stalking and ambushing)

• AMBUSH (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they ambush    ... he / she / it ambushes   
Past simple: ambushed   
Past participle: ambushed   
-ing form: ambushing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Wait in hiding to attack

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Synonyms:

ambuscade; ambush; bushwhack; lie in wait; lurk; scupper; waylay

Hypernyms (to "ambush" is one way to...):

wait (stay in one place and anticipate or expect something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

ambush (the act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise)

ambusher (an attacker who waits in a concealed position to launch a surprise attack)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hunt (quarry) by stalking and ambushing

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Synonyms:

ambush; still-hunt

Hypernyms (to "ambush" is one way to...):

hunt; hunt down; run; track down (pursue for food or sport (as of wild animals))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

ambush (the act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise)

ambusher (an attacker who waits in a concealed position to launch a surprise attack)

 Context examples 

'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,' thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.'

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

From my place of ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On three sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in an ambush.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, Dear brother, I have found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between us.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Instead of lurking on the seafloor and ambushing prey, as many of its contemporaries did, Gladbachus may have been one of the first vertebrates to live in the water column — the space between the ocean's surface and bottom — where anchovies, sardines and herring make their home today.

(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

The team was surprised to discover higher-than-expected concentrations of colubroid snakes, suggesting the local environment was more open and seasonally dry, thus more hospitable to these types of active hunting snakes that don't require cover to ambush prey like boas and pythons do.

(Researchers find oldest fossil evidence of modern African venomous snakes, NSF)

If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business, that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable ambush of the crouching trees.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)