ambulance

• n. [車輛][醫] 救護車；戰時流動醫院

amble的現在分詞，原指戰場上救護醫生抬著擔架四處救助傷員，後專有化指救護車。

ambulance

ambulance: [19] Originally, ambulance was a French term for a field hospital – that is, one set up at a site convenient for a battlefield, and capable of being moved on to the next battlefield when the army advanced (or retreated). In other words, it was an itinerant hospital, and the ultimate source of the term is the Latin verb ambulāre ‘walk’ (as in amble). The earliest recorded term for such a military hospital in French was the 17th-century hôpital ambulatoire.

This was later replaced by hôpital ambulant, literally ‘walking hospital’, and finally, at the end of the 18th century, by ambulance. This sense of the word had died out by the late 19th century, but already its attributive use, in phrases such as ambulance cart and ambulance wagon, had led to its being used for a vehicle for carrying the wounded or sick.
=> acid, alacrity, amble, perambulator

ambulance (n.)

1798, "mobile or field hospital," from French (hôpital) ambulant, literally "walking (hospital)," from Latin ambulantem (nominative ambulans), present participle of ambulare "to walk" (see amble).

AMBULANCE, s. f. a moveable hospital. These were houses constructed in a manner so as to be taken to pieces, and carried from place to place, according to the movements of the army; and served as receptacles in which the sick and wounded men might be received and attended. ["Lexicographica-Neologica Gallica" (The Neological French Dictionary), William Dupré, London, 1801]

The word was not common in English until the meaning transferred from "field hospital" to "vehicle for conveying wounded from field" (1854) during the Crimean War. In late 19c. U.S. the word was used dialectally to mean "prairie wagon." Ambulance-chaser as a contemptuous term for a type of lawyer dates from 1897.

1. We gave the gate money to the St John Ambulance brigade.

我們將門票收入都捐給了聖約翰急救隊。

來自柯林斯例句

2. He screamed for his wife to call an ambulance.

他尖叫著讓他老婆打電話叫救護車。

來自柯林斯例句

3. Mrs Hardie had been taken to the infirmary in an ambulance.

哈迪夫人被救護車送到了醫院。

來自柯林斯例句

4. I was close by as Lester was stretchered into the ambulance.

萊斯特被用擔架抬進救護車時我就在旁邊。

來自柯林斯例句

5. We got an ambulance and rushed her to hospital.

我們叫了一輛救護車，趕緊把她送到了醫院。

來自柯林斯例句