#83

pi·rate (pī'rĭt) Pronunciation Key
n.

1.
1. One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation.
2. A ship used for this purpose.
2. One who preys on others; a plunderer.
3. One who makes use of or reproduces the work of another without authorization.
4. One that operates an unlicensed, illegal television or radio station.


v. pi·rat·ed, pi·rat·ing, pi·rates

v. tr.

1. To attack and rob (a ship at sea).
2. To take (something) by piracy.
3. To make use of or reproduce (another's work) without authorization.


v. intr.
To act as a pirate; practice piracy.


[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin pīrāta, from Greek peirātēs, from peirān, to attempt, from peira, trial; see per-3 in Indo-European roots.]

pi·rat'ic (pī-rāt'ĭk), pi·rat'i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) adj., pi·rat'i·cal·ly adv.

#5

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
1. An ambush.

transitive verb:
1. To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
-- Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
-- Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
-- William Murchison, "What the voters chose", Human Life Review, January 1, 1995


Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

from dictionary.com


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The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
David Richerby

#3

coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle.
2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.

They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001

Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989

What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989

Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999


Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."

from Dictionary.com


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