ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED.]
1. Placed or lying in ambush.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron., 288. Biside enbussed, was fiften hundred sped, In foure grete escheles.
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 260. This knight … Embuished upon horsebake.
c. 1450. Merlin, xv. 246. Men enbusshed in that streite passage.
1481. Caxton, Myrr., II. vi. 77. The hunters that ben embusshed by.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faustus, 136. (Enter the ambushed Soldiers).
1667. Dryden, Indian Emp., I. ii. (1725), 336. Swarming Bands of ambush’d Men.
1810. Coleridge, Friend, III. xv. (1867), 211. The ambushed soldier must not fire his musket.
1861. Russell, in Times, 29 July, 6/1. The sharp whizz of the balls, and the clack of the lead against the rocks, direct the eye to the ambushed rifleman who is practising to his a ‘Secesher.’
2. fig. Concealed so as suddenly to burst forth, come in view, or take by surprise.
1647. R. Stapylton, Juvenal, 90. Her teares in troops still ambusht, waite to know What’s her designe.
1798. S. Rogers, Epist. Friend, 143. Tuneful echoes, ambushed at my gate.
1833. Tennyson, Poems, 43. I wish I were her earring, Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek.
1835. J. Harris, Gt. Teacher, 267. Murder, ambushed in an unbreathed and unsuspected thought.
1839. Bailey, Festus, 35/1. Till in some ambushed eddy it is sucked down.
1875. Lowell, Poet. Wks. (1879), 462. Half-tamed hamlets, ambushed round with woods.
