LIE IN WAIT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lie in wait mean? 

• LIE IN WAIT (verb)
  The verb LIE IN WAIT has 1 sense:

1. wait in hiding to attack

  Familiarity information: LIE IN WAIT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIE IN WAIT (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Wait in hiding to attack

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Synonyms:

ambuscade; ambush; bushwhack; lie in wait; lurk; scupper; waylay

Hypernyms (to "lie in wait" is one way to...):

wait (stay in one place and anticipate or expect something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

To lie in wait for me now would mean that the creature had appreciated what had happened to me, and this in turn would argue some power connecting cause and effect.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

After that I determined to lie in wait, so I got out my revolver and I sat up in my study, which overlooks the lawn and garden.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He did not take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

But what I particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth's, and Steerforth's with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out between the two.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

That a man should lie in wait for and follow a very handsome woman is no unheard-of thing, and if he has so little audacity that he not only dared not address her, but even fled from her approach, he was not a very formidable assailant.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)