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bushwhack

[boosh-hwak, -wak]

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verb (used without object)

to make one's way through woods by cutting at undergrowth, branches, etc.

to travel through woods.

to pull a boat upstream from on board by grasping bushes, rocks, etc., on the shore.

to fight as a bushwhacker or guerrilla in the bush.

verb (used with object)

to fight as a bushwhacker; ambush.

to defeat, especially by surprise or in an underhanded way: They bushwhacked our high school team when they used college players.

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Bushwhack is one of our favorite verbs.

So is peculate. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.

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Origin:
1830–40, Americanism; back formation from bushwhacker

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To bushwhack

Collins

World English Dictionary

bushwhack (ˈbʊʃˌwæk)

—vb
1.	(US), (Canadian), (Austral) (tr) to ambush
2.	(US), (Canadian), (Austral) (intr) to cut or beat one's way through thick woods
3.	(US), (Canadian), (Austral) (intr) to range or move around in woods or the bush
4.	(US), (Canadian) (intr) to fight as a guerrilla in wild or uncivilized regions
5.	(NZ) (intr) to work in the bush, esp at timber felling

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Matching Quote

"The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bushwhack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with plow and spade."

-Henry David Thoreau

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bushwhack

bush·whack