ambuscade

plural ambuscades

1. datedAn ambush; a trap laid for an enemy.

   The plot of the tragedy at hand was the very old one of the decoy and the ambuscade […]

   1883, Harper's Magazine

   3 more examples

   The yellow cat deliberately stretched himself, yawned, and followed; and proceeded to carry out a wonderful scheme of feints and ambuscades in regard to a ping-pong ball which was kept for his proper diversion.

   1904, Frederick William Rolfe, Hadrian the Seventh, New York: The New York Review of Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 9

   Accordingly an army was sent into Corea. It met the Japanese before the walls of Pʻing Jang (平壤), where it was annihilated and its commander, Tsu Chʻêng-hsun, (祖承訓), barely escaped with his life. The next Chinese army under the command of Li Ju-sung (李如松), fresh from a successful campaign against a Mongol rebel in Ning Hsia (甯夏), gained a victory over the Japanese in Pʻing Jang; but, elated by this success, the Chinese general allowed himself to be led into an ambuscade near Seoul and overthrown (1593).

   1914, Li Ung Bing, “The Ming Dynasty (Continued)”, in Joseph Whiteside, editor, Outlines of Chinese History, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, →OCLC, page 251

   De Metz: An ambuscade! There are Burgundian soldiers everywhere! Hurry west to the river, where we can made^([sic]) our escape!

   1999 September 30, Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, v2.0a, Microsoft, Windows PC, level/area: An Unlikely Messiah

2. The place in which troops lie hidden for an ambush.

   The wayfarer is shot at by a party of foot Indians from some cover or ambuscade.

   1844, George W. Kendall, Narrative of the Santa Fé Expedition, Comprising a Description of a Tour through Texas, and Across the Great Southwestern Prairies, the Camanche and Cayüga Hunting-Grounds, with an Account of the Sufferings from Want of Food, Losses from Hostile Indians, and Final Capture of the Texans, and Their March, As Prisoners to the City of Mexico, Harper and Brothers, page 29

   1 more example

   I went so far with it in my Imagination, that I employed my self several days to find out proper Places to put my self in Ambuscade

   1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, published 1719, →ISBN, page 143

3. The body of troops lying in ambush.

present singular third person ambuscades · participle present ambuscading · participle past ambuscaded · past ambuscaded

1. datedTo lie in wait for, or to attack from a covert or lurking place; to waylay.

   On the return to camp, the party was ambuscaded and dispersed, the officer and one man having been killed.

   1849, Roswell Sabine Ripley, The War with Mexico, volume I, Harper & Brothers, page 106

   2 more examples

   About noon we passed a small village in Merrimack at Thornton's Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Naticook Brook on the same side, where French and his companions, whose grave we saw in Dunstable, were ambuscaded by the Indians.

   1849, Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, James R. Osgood, published 1873, page 228

   But aside from its love story, the picture is filled with the fighting and shooting, fording rivers with wagon trains, Indians ambuscading wagon trains, scouts who drink whisky and fight and ride magnificently.

   1923, Carl Sandburg, film review dated 18 May 1923, re-printed in The Movies Are: Carl Sandburg's Film Reviews and Essays, 1920-1928 (ed. Arnie Bernstein), Lake Claremont Press (2000), page 169