Waylaid

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To be stopped or interrupted suddenly while going somewhere ; to be assaulted or ambushed unexpectedly during travel or movement
2. Describes someone who is delayed or stopped without warning along their route ; subjected to an attack or surprise assault while on the way
3. Refers to an unanticipated interruption occurring en route ; caught off guard by a sudden hostile encounter or attack

Etymology: "Waylaid" is the past tense and past participle of "waylay," and the verb it comes from is a compound of "way" and "lay." The "lay" here means to place or set oneself, so the original picture is of someone lying in wait along a road. The English word is likely a calque (a word-for-word translation) of Middle Dutch "wegelagen," which described the act of lying in wait on public roads with evil or hostile intent. Middle Low German "wegelagen" and German "wegelagern," meaning to rob or lie in ambush, follow the same pattern, so the idea of a hidden attacker on the road travelled across several neighbouring languages. In English, then, the core meaning of being ambushed on a journey was there from the start, and the softer modern sense of being stopped or delayed by someone along the way grew out of it. A traveller who is waylaid today is usually held up by a talkative acquaintance rather than robbed, but the image of an interception on the road remains.

Synonyms: ambushed, intercepted