Ambulance

//ˈæm.bjə.ləns// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An emergency vehicle designed for transporting seriously ill or injured people to a hospital.

    "The NHS is bracing itself for its worst ever winter crisis descending in the next fortnight because of a worsening “flu-nami” that has left hospitals, GP surgeries and ambulances services under intense strain."

  2. 2
    a vehicle that takes people to and from hospitals wordnet
  3. 3
    A mobile field hospital.
  4. 4
    A vehicle used for the transportation of dead people, typically to a mortuary. UK
  5. 5
    Synonym of stretcher, a litter used for medical transport. UK, obsolete
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    Synonym of covered wagon. US, obsolete
Verb
  1. 1
    To transport by ambulance. transitive

    "Ambulancing patients with acute obstruction over cobble and rails should not be tolerated; better render the necessary service where the patient is found."

Synonyms

All synonyms
airplaneautomobileband-aid buggyblood boxbody boxbone box

Example

More examples

"The ambulance broke down in the middle of the busy avenue."

Etymology

Borrowed from French ambulance, which replaced hôpital ambulant (“moving hospital”) via the suffix -ance, from Latin ambulō (“to walk; to go about”).

Related phrases

air ambulanceambulance at the bottom of a cliffambulance chaserambulance chasingambulance coverambulance trainambulance-chasecall an ambulancefield ambulancemotor-ambulancepolice ambulanceprivate ambulance

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.