ambulance
(ˈæmbjʊləns)
[a. mod.Fr. ambulance (formerly hôpital ambulant walking hospital); f. L. ambulant-em walking, as if ad. L. *ambulantia: see -ance.]
Not in Craig 1847; app. came into general use during the Crimean War.
1. A moving hospital, which follows an army in its movements, so as to afford the speediest possible succour to the wounded. Often attrib.
| 1809 Ann. Reg. 1807 (Otridge) 14/1 They [sc. the wounded] were successively carried to the ambulance, or train of carriages. 1819 Edin. Rev. XXXI. 310 These ambulances in their most perfect form consist of a mounted corps of surgeons and inferior assistants..to remove them [the wounded] to other ambulances or temporary hospitals. 1833 Penny Cycl. I. 425 Ambulance, a French word applied to the moving hospitals which are attached to every French army. 1860 Tristram Gt. Sahara i. 9 Ambulance waggons laden with sick and wounded. 1864 Daily Tel. 3 Mar., The ambulance men carrying the stretchers. |
2. a. An ambulance waggon or cart; a covered vehicle on springs for conveying the wounded off the field of battle, etc. More recently, a vehicle for conveying sick or wounded persons.
| 1854 Manch. Guard. 25 Nov., The ambulances as fast as they came up received their load of sufferers. 1870 Disraeli Lothair lviii. 312, I passed an ambulance this moment. 1922 Home Service Ambulance Committee Rep. (St. John & Brit. Red Cross Soc.) 1 The total number of patients carried in the Committee's ambulances..amounts to 103,655. 1931 N. C. Fletcher St. John Ambulance Assoc. 24 There were treated 247 cases, of which 41 required removal by ambulance. |
b. attrib. and
Comb. as
ambulance (aero)plane, an aeroplane equipped to carry the sick and wounded (
cf. air ambulance,
air n.1 III. 5);
ambulance-chaser U.S. slang, a lawyer who makes a business of raising actions for personal injuries;
ambulance class, a first-aid class;
ambulance service, a service whereby ambulances are provided; also
fig.| 1925 World's Health July 282 Ambulance aeroplanes are at present rendering remarkable services in Morocco. 1939 Times 2 Nov. 8/2 Last week the State Department granted export licences for the shipment to Sweden of 15 Seversky aeroplanes and one ambulance aeroplane. |
| 1897 Congress. Rec. 24 July 2961/1 In New York City there is a style of lawyers known to the profession as ‘ambulance chasers’, because they are on hand wherever there is a railway wreck, or a street-car collision..with..their offers of professional services. 1961 Guardian 14 Mar. 2/4 A new kind of ‘ambulance chaser’—who were unscrupulous lawyers who collected details of casualties as they were taken to hospital in order to persuade the person concerned to bring action for damages. |
| 1878 P. Shepherd Handbk. Aids for Injuries p. xiii, I have hurriedly arranged the following Manual for the use of..ambulance classes. |
| 1921 Flight 2 June 382/1 American ambulance 'plane comes to grief. |
| 1903 Encycl. Amer. I. s.v. Ambulance, The first city ambulance service was inaugurated by the Bellevue Hospital authorities in New York in December 1869. 1907 Daily Chron. 11 Feb. 4/6 London's ‘ambulance service’ for street accidents and sudden illness. 1962 Daily Tel. 15 June 26 The ‘ambulance service’ run by the Co-operative Wholesale Society to take over and rescue failing retail societies. |
3. A touring caravan or similar vehicle.
U.S.| 1856 N.Y. Herald 9 Jan. 2/1 The vehicle..like most ambulances, or ‘prairie wagons’, as they call them here, proved rather airy. 1899 T. W. Hall Tales 95 Once in a while she caught sight of a muffled figure in an ambulance that stopped for water for its thirsty mules. |