SHANGHAI


Meaning of SHANGHAI in English

I. (ˈ)shaŋ|hī, -aiŋ(|)- adjective

Usage: usually capitalized

Etymology: from Shanghai, city in eastern China

: of or from the city of Shanghai, China : of the kind or style prevalent in Shanghai

II. noun

( -s )

Usage: usually capitalized

: a tall long-legged red and black domestic fowl held to have been imported from the Orient

III. transitive verb

( shanghaied ; shanghaied ; shanghaiing ; shanghais )

Etymology: from Shanghai, China; from the formerly widespread use of unscrupulous means to procure sailors for voyages to the Orient

1.

a. : to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug

was notorious as a hell ship whose sailors were usually shanghaied — American Guide Series: Washington

b. : to put by force or a threat of force into or as if into a place of detention

prisoners of war, shanghaied laborers, forcibly displaced people and other uprooted men — Journal American Medical Association

shanghaied by a white slaver while on her way home from choir practice — Polly Adler

2. : to put by trickery into an undesirable position

no other agent in this patriotic traffic has shanghaied more unwary industrialists — E.J.Kahn

• shanghai·er -hī(ə)r, -īə noun -s

IV. noun

( -s )

Etymology: perhaps alteration (influenced by Shanghai, China) of shangan

Australia : slingshot

Webster's New International English Dictionary.      Новый международный словарь английского языка Webster.