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The synonym ambush is older by a century, but English made room for ambuscade in the late 16th century anyway. That word was borrowed into English from Middle French, whose speakers had raided Old Italian to get it: the French had made embuscade from imboscata, which was from imboscare, “to place in ambush.” The boscare part of that word is ultimately of Germanic origin, from bosco, meaning “forest.” Evidence of ambush functioning as a verb can be found as far back as the dawn of the 14th century. It arrived not from Middle French (French as spoken in the 14th-16th centuries), but from Anglo-French, the French spoken in medieval England. Its second syllable is from Old French busc, meaning “forest, grove.”
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“Ambuscade.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ambuscade. Accessed 10 Jul. 2025.
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ambuscade
noun
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