kidnap

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“
Raina being a veteran businessman, understands that the kidnap is the ` josh 'of a kid, who is completely out of his league.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To seize and detain unlawfully and usually for ransom.
  2. Word History
    Appropriately enough, kidnapper seems to have originated among those who perpetrate this crime. We know this because kid and napper, the two parts of the compound, were slang of the sort that criminals used. Kid, which still has an informal air, was considered low slang when kidnapper was formed, and napper is obsolete slang for a thief, coming from the verb nap, "to steal.” Nap is possibly a variant of nab, which also still has a slangy ring. In 1678, the year in which the word is first recorded, kidnappers plied their trade to secure laborers for plantations in colonies such as the ones in North America. The term later took on the broader sense that it has today. The verb kidnap is recorded later (1682) than the noun and so is possibly a back-formation, that is, people may have assumed that a kidnapper kidnaps.

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Examples (50)

  • Maks was now far ahead of him, moving with the speed of a younger man to do exactly what Benjo had commanded him to do -- kidnap John and take him back to Ulanor, far out of reach of anyone in this dying world. —  F ;SF; - vol 102 issue 03 - March 2002
  • There was nothing to talk about, except the fact that the end of a kidnap was always the period of greatest risk. —  The Hard Way by Lee Child
  • Either a hit team moonlighting on the kidnap, or a kidnap team moonlighting on the hits. —  Echo Burning by Lee Child
  • One thing, if this kidnap was a ransom job, they were on a loser. —  Jade Woman - Jonathan Gash - Lovejoy 12
  • In 1936, Bruno Hauptmann was electrocuted in Trenton, N.J., for the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. In 1946, Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March, was executed by firing squad outside Manila, Philippines. —  California Chronicle
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Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

arson ·  abduction ·  robbery ·  rape ·  blackmail ·  sabotage ·  bribery ·  homicide ·  felony ·  sodomy ·  embezzlement ·  assassination

Used in the same contextWord Family

kidnap:   kidnapping ·  kidnapped
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Probably kid + nap, to snatch (perhaps variant of nab and or of Scandinavian origin).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Orig. a slang word, taken from the cant of thieves; from kid, n., 5, + nap, a variant of nab, snatch.
 

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/ˈkɪdnæp/
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