lie in wait
verb1
Idiomatic To be hiding, waiting to ambush or attack someone, or simply to accost them unexpectedly.
- Nothing impressed me, so much, in my visits here (which were pretty numerous) as the uncommonly hard and cruel character of the audience, who resent the slightest defect, take nothing good-humouredly, seem to be always lying in wait for an opportunity to hiss, and spare the actresses as little as the actors.1846, Charles Dickens, “Genoa and Its Neighbourhood”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 67: