shanghai

Etymology 1
1871, from the important Chinese port, as a verb with reference to the former practice by some shippers on the West Coast of the United States of crews for fishing or shipping in the Pacific Ocean.

Verb

 * 1)  To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularly
 * 2) * 1974 September 30, ‘Final Report on the Activities of the Children of God',
 * Oftentimes the approach is to shanghai an unsuspecting victim.
 * 1) * 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.
 * 1) * 2018, 138 S. Ct. 2448
 * 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.
 * 1) To press-gang sailors, especially  for shipping or fishing work.
 * 2)  To trick a suspect into entering a jurisdiction in which they can be lawfully arrested.
 * 3)  To transfer a serviceman against their will.
 * 4) * Eugene Cunningham, "A One-Man Navy":
 * “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.”
 * 1) * Joseph Heller, Catch-22:
 * 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.
 * 1)  To commandeer, hijack, or otherwise (usually wrongfully) appropriate a place or thing.
 * 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.
 * 1)  To commandeer, hijack, or otherwise (usually wrongfully) appropriate a place or thing.

Translations

 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: ,
 * Danish: shanghaje
 * Dutch: sjanghaaien
 * Finnish:
 * German:
 * Hungarian:
 * Irish: shanghai-áil
 * Italian: arruolare a forza
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish:

Noun



 * 1)  A breed of chicken with large bodies, long legs, and feathered shanks.
 * 2)  A kind of daub.
 * 3) * 1880 Jan., Scribner's Monthly, p. 365:
 * 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.
 * 1)  A tall dandy.
 * 2)  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.
 * 3) * 1977 May 10, Daily Mirror, p. 30:
 * 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.
 * 1) * 1977 May 10, Daily Mirror, p. 30:
 * 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.

Usage notes
The chicken breed is now generally subsumed into the and  categories.

Etymology 2
From Scottish, from , influenced by the Chinese city.

Noun

 * 1) * 1863 Oct. 24, Leader, p. 17:
 * Turn, turn thy shang~hay dread aside, Nor touch that little bird
 * Turn, turn thy shang~hay dread aside, Nor touch that little bird

Verb

 * 1)  To hit with a slingshot.