shanghai

1. (transitive) To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularlyExamples: "1974 September 30, ‘Final Report on the Activities of the Children of God', Oftentimes the approach is to shanghai an unsuspecting victim."; "Their power had a flaw to it. They could be shanghaied in toilets."; "1999 June 24, ‘The Resurrection of Tom Waits’, in Rolling Stone, quoted in Innocent When You Dream, Orion (2006), page 256, It was the strangest galley: the sounds, the steam, he's screaming at his coworkers. I felt like I'd been shanghaied."transitive

2. (transitive) To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularlyExamples: "By this time I hadn't much doubt of the nature of the trap and the identity of the trapping vessel. The faint smell of alcohol in the forehold told the story. I had been sandbagged and taken aboard a bootlegging craft, shanghaied in good old-fashioned style; and the vessel was probably now on its way to the Bahamas for a cargo of spirits."transitive

3. (transitive) To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularlyUSslangtransitive

4. (transitive) To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularlyExamples: "“Why, if you so loved and cherished the armed guard,” Captain Banning continued, “did you arrange for transfer?” “I never, sir! ... But he shanghaied me out of the armed guard pronto.”"; "There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a cystologist for his cysts, and a bald and pedantic cetologist from the zoology department at Harvard who had been shanghaied ruthlessly into the Medical Corps by a faulty anode in an I.B.M. machine and spent his sessions with the dying colonel trying to discuss Moby Dick with him."USslangtransitive

5. (transitive) To commandeer, hijack, or otherwise (usually wrongfully) appropriate a place or thing.Examples: "Let's see if we can shanghai a room for a couple of hours."transitive