ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
1. An ambush.

transitive verb:
1. To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
-- Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
-- Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
-- William Murchison, "What the voters chose", Human Life Review, January 1, 1995

Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle.
2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.

They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001

Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989

What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989

Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999

Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."

riposte \rih-POST\, noun:
1. A quick thrust given after parrying an opponent's lunge in fencing.
2. A quick and effective reply by word or act.

intransitive verb:
1. To make a riposte.

She had an agile, teasing sense of humor that included a sure grasp of the absurd and an instinct for punchy ripostes.
-- Sally Bedell Smith, Diana in Search of Herself

It was an inelegant riposte, especially for one so quick-witted as Neumann.
-- Peter Gay, My German Question

When she told him how much she hated being called an old trout, he'd riposte: "The trout is the most beautiful of fish."
-- Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg

Riposte derives from Italian risposta, "an answer," from rispondere, "to answer," from Latin respondere, "to promise in return, to answer," from re- + spondere, "to promise."

confabulation \kon-FAB-yuh-lay-shuhn\, noun:
1. Familiar talk; easy, unrestrained, unceremonious conversation.
2. (Psychology) A plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered.

Their sentiments were reflected neither in the elegant exchanges between the Viceroy and Secretary of State, nor in the unlovely confabulations between the Congress and the League managers.
-- Mushirul Hasan, "Partition: The Human Cost", History Today, September 1997

Sigmund Freud, a stubborn, bullying interrogator of hysterical women, harangued his patients into building fantasies and traumas that fit into his grand narrative scheme, eliciting confabulations rather than actual memories.
-- Jennifer Howard, "Neurosis 1990s-Style", Civilization, April/May 1997

Confabulation comes from Late Latin confabulatio, from the past participle of Latin confabulari, "to talk together," from con-, "together, with" + fabulari, "to talk." It is related to fable, "a fiction, a tale," and to fabulous, "so incredible or astonishing as to resemble or suggest a fable."

matutinal \muh-TOOT-n-uhl\, adjective:
Relating to or occurring in the morning; early.

Get up early and wash your face in the matutinal May Day dew; it will make your skin beautiful and your heart pure.
-- Ray Murphy, "Hurray, Hurray, the Month of May", Boston Globe, April 28, 1988

We had to rehearse at an hour at which no actor or actress has been out of bed within the memory of man; and we sardonically congratulated one another every morning on our rosy matutinal looks and the improvement wrought by our early rising in our health and characters.
-- George Bernard Shaw, "The Author's Apology", Mrs. Warren's Profession

Harry Truman, was -- like Winston Churchill -- known to take a matutinal shot of whisky. He did it after his regular very vigorous early-morning walk.
-- R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "Plainly presidential", The Washington Times, January 18, 2002

Matutinal is from Late Latin matutinalis, from Latin matutinus, "early in the morning; pertaining to the morning."