lying in wait
- idiom
- NSFW
- In the movie, the monster was lying in wait, hidden in the shadows, until the unsuspecting campers arrived.
- hiding or lying in wait
Examples
-
The assassin was lying in wait behind the bushes, ready to strike when his target appeared.
-
"I was lying in wait for Thomas, actually, but he's in a terrible mood."
Fiction book (1991) -
Could there be a fourth generation lying in wait?
Academic text (1995) -
Whenever he came in, it seemed she was lying in wait for him.
Fiction book (1995) -
She had obviously been lying in wait.
Fiction book (1995) -
That was no oil-drilling rig on Phu Qui Island; it was a major Philippine combat fleet, with at least three of its largest class of warships lying in wait.
Fiction book (1991) -
Out alone in the forest, especially when he was lying in wait to make a kill or drifting off to sleep in the hammock while birds sang and monkeys fed in the canopy around him, it took on the quality of something intangible: a smell he could only half remember or a sound he'd heard only once, but no matter how hard he listened, he never could hear again.
Fiction book (1995) -
Obviously, they’d been lying in wait for the freighter; it was just his bad luck that he’d run across the Interdictor's projected mass shadow and been kicked out of hyperspace along with it.
Fiction book (1991) -
The soldiers were lying in wait for the enemy forces to make their move before launching their surprise attack.
Synonyms
132
5.5
An attack from a hidden place that surprises people
1
9.9
An act of hiding and then suddenly attacking people
1
9.9
An attack from hiding in thick bushes or a forest
Antonyms
How Concealed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'lie' (as in reclining/hidden) + 'in' + 'wait' (to stay and wait) give a clear partial cue that someone is hidden and waiting, so the general idea is derivable. However, the specific sense of ambushing/attacking by surprise and the potential confusion with 'lying' = telling untruths make the exact interpretation somewhat idiomatic and not fully predictable for a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Lying in wait comes from the literal image of a hunter or soldier quietly lying hidden and waiting to jump out and attack. That's why it means 'to hide and wait in order to attack someone by surprise'.