Ambuscade

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 8, 2005

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
An ambush.

transitive verb:
To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
--Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
--Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
--William Murchison, "What the voters chose," Human Life Review, January 1, 1995


Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.
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ambushed by the weather (family caught by surprise without appropriate gear):