# shanghai
## English
### Alternative forms

* (verb): shanghae
* (slingshot): shangeye

### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈʃæŋ.haɪ/, /ʃæŋˈhaɪ/, /ʃɑŋˈhaɪ/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ʃæŋˈhaɪ/, /ˈʃæŋ.haɪ/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪ

### Etymology 1

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

#### Verb

shanghai (third-person singular simple present shanghais, present participle shanghaiing, simple past and past participle shanghaied or shanghai'd)
* (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.
** 1985, Margaret Atwood, “Birth Day”, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 143: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.
** 2018 Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 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.
** To press-gang sailors, especially (historical) for shipping or fishing work.
*** 1923, Francis Lynde, chapter 2, in Somewhere in the Caribbean: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.
** (US law enforcement slang) To trick a suspect into entering a jurisdiction in which they can be lawfully arrested.
** (US military slang) To transfer a serviceman against their will.
*** 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.”
*** 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.
* (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.

##### Derived terms

* shanghaier

##### Translations
#### Noun

shanghai (plural shanghais)
* (often capitalized, dated) A breed of chicken with large bodies, long legs, and feathered shanks.
** 1853, W.B. Tegetmeier, Profitable Poultry, page 19:Cochins or Shanghaes.
* (US, obsolete) A kind of daub.
** 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.
* (US, obsolete) A tall dandy.
* (darts, often capitalized) 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.
** 1930, Anchor Magazine, page 196:‘Shanghai’ may be played by teams of 8, in pairs, individually, or, in fact, any number.
** 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 brahma and cochin categories.

### Etymology 2

From Scottish shangan, from Scottish Gaelic seangan, influenced by the Chinese city.

#### Noun

shanghai (plural shanghais)
* (Australia, New Zealand) Synonym of slingshot.
** 1863 Oct. 24, Leader, p. 17:
    Turn, turn thy shang~hay dread aside, Nor touch that little bird
** 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 206:They scrounged around the camp […] and held out their filthy wings to the feeble sun, making themselves an easy target for Charles's shanghai.
** 2020, Parliament of Singapore, “Guns, Explosives and Weapons Control Bill”, in Republic of Singapore Government Gazette‎, page 161: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.

#### Verb

shanghai (third-person singular simple present shanghais, present participle shanghaiing, simple past and past participle shanghaied)
* (Australia, New Zealand) To hit with a slingshot.

### References

* ↑ “shanghai”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present: “First Known Use of shanghai 1871, in the meaning defined at sense 1a 1 a: to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug”

### Further reading

* “shanghai, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
* “shanghai, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
* “shanghai”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* “shanghai”, in Collins English Dictionary..
* "shanghai" in Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1908.
* Patridge, Eric. Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 2006, p. 613.