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🎯 To attack secretly 🎯 A surprise attack 📢 Event publicity trick
to ambush

to ambush

133 5.2
To attack a person or animal by hiding and surprising them
  • verb
  • /ˈæmˌbʊʃ/
translation icon : emboscar
  • They planned to ambush the enemy soldiers while they were setting up their camp.
  • ambush enemy forces
  • ambush prey
  • ambush and kill

We had another convoy of guys that got ambushed and shot up on the Baghdad Hwy.

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Examples

  • And the Ukrainian army has been brilliant at ambushing these tanks and hitting them with these missiles.

  • In early March of that year, Chinese troops ambushed Soviet guards amid rising tensions over a disputed border area.

    Academic text (2018)

  • Only if we knew, we could ambush them and take the children back.

    Fear and Love: The Story of The Exorcist (2024)

  • Together these two groups would ambush the first lorry.

  • And in March they ambushed their most ambitious target yet.

  • We went into their camps and we ambushed them at night.

    Shawn Ryan Show

  • One night, we were out on a night patrol, we were ambushed from all sides.

    A Patriot's Day (2021)

  • Before Basil can respond, he is ambushed by the three ghouls, who pull him down off his horse.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • A patrol of mounted policemen had been ambushed near the intersection of State and Adams.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The hunters knew they had to ambush the deer by hiding behind the trees.

Synonyms

to surprise
vsto ambush
111 4.5

To attack someone suddenly to catch them off guard

adds the idea of hiding beforehand, not just suddenness of attack
to blindside
vsto ambush
9 6.8

To attack someone from the side they cannot see or expect

focuses on attacking from a hidden position rather than a specific side
to lie in wait
vsto ambush
8 6.8

To hide and wait to attack someone by surprise

emphasizes the same waiting then attacking action as the key term
to bushwhack
vsto ambush
  • Informal
2 9.0

To attack someone suddenly from a hidden place

is the common single word for the same hidden surprise attack
to waylay
vsto ambush
2 8.6

To stop someone unexpectedly to speak to or attack them

involves attacking from a hidden waiting position rather than any approach
to ambuscade
vsto ambush
9.9

To hide and then suddenly attack someone

is the standard verb for carrying out that hidden sudden attack

Antonyms

to reveal
∞ 2.3

Show something that was hidden or secret

to expose
146 2.8

Make something visible by removing a cover or letting light reach it

How Stealthy

to ambush
133 5.2
to surprise
111 4.5
to waylay
2 8.6

Surface Forms

ambush infinitive
ambushed past
ambushed past participle
ambushing present participle
ambushes third person singular

Etymology

To ambush comes from the same idea of being 'in the bush' and then jumping out, so the verb means to hide and suddenly attack someone. This image of waiting in cover explains why to ambush is to strike by surprise.