shanghai

verb

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

   “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.”

   “Woody: 'While I was out, I got me some sushi! Assume the position, fish boy!' / Squid Lips: 'Arr, and who are you calling "fish boy", matey? I've been shanghaied by a darn splinter!'”

   “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.”

   “Petitioner strenuously objects to this free-rider label. He argues that he is not a free rider on a bus headed for a destination that he wishes to reach but is more like a person shanghaied for an unwanted voyage.”

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

   “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.”

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

   ““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.”

5. (transitive)To commandeer, hijack, or otherwise (usually wrongfully) appropriate a place or thing.

   “Let's see if we can shanghai a room for a couple of hours.”

6. (Australia, New-Zealand)To hit with a slingshot.

noun

1. (capitalized, dated, often)A breed of chicken with large bodies, long legs, and feathered shanks.

   “Cochins or Shanghaes.”

2. (US, obsolete)A kind of daub.

   “The ‘shanghai’ is the glaring daub required by some frame-makers for cheap auctions. They are turned out at so much by the day's labor, or at from $12 to $24 a dozen, by the piece.”

3. (US, obsolete)A tall dandy.
4. (capitalized, often)A kind of dart game in which players are gradually eliminated ("shanghaied"), usually either by failing to reach a certain score in 3 quick throws or during a competition to hit a certain prechosen number and then be the first to hit the prechosen numbers of the other players.

   “‘Shanghai’ may be played by teams of 8, in pairs, individually, or, in fact, any number.”

   “The hot twenty—including local favourites George Simmons, Tony Brown, Mick Norris and Lew Walker—have to sweat through nineteen 501s, one 1,001, one 2,001, one round-the-board-on-doubles, one shanghai and one halve-it.”

5. (Australia, New-Zealand)Synonym of slingshot.

   “Turn, turn thy shang~hay dread aside, Nor touch that little bird”

   “‘Terry Madison. Instead of fiddling with that shanghai, give us a thought.’ ‘It’s a gongai,’ Swiftie said. ‘I mean that’s the name for a shanghai which is another name for a catapult...that Mr Delarue calls a slingshot.’”

   “They scrounged around the camp […] and held out their filthy wings to the feeble sun, making themselves an easy target for Charles's shanghai.”

   “However, certain objects are excluded from being treated as a gun. These include a longbow, crossbow, slingshot or shanghai even though it is capable of propelling a projectile by means of an explosive force.”

6. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of shanghai in its various senses derived from the Chinese city.

name

1. A major port city and direct-administered municipality of China, the largest urban area in China.

   “In January 1901, we reached Japan where Mrs. Hoover remained for the winter while I went to Shanghai in search of a method of reaching North China. The Port of Taku being frozen and there being then no railway connection between Shanghai and the north, all communication had been suspended for the winter.”

   “By the year 2000, Shanghai is scheduled to become an international center of commerce and finance; economic strategists predict that by 2010 the city will have become the world's largest trading center. This "secret capital" of China has set some ambitious goals for itself. The population is proudly celebrating their collective "coming out," and business is booming.”

   “Victor Li is determined to get married soon, but like many other young Chinese grappling with an uncertain economic outlook, the well-heeled Shanghai entrepreneur isn't sure he can afford to. "It's very expensive for us to get married, especially in a big city like Shanghai," the 32-year-old said, as he took a break from a ticketed networking event for wealthier, top university-educated singles at an upmarket Shanghai jazz bar.”

2. A major international port including the eastern coast of Shanghai Municipality and the northeastern islands of Zhejiang Province.