Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to kidnap, to abduct; thus shanghaiing n., kidnapping; also in fig. use.

1854		N.Y. Daily Times 15 Mar. 3: Quite an excitement was created here before she sailed by a rumored attempt to Shanghai the Captain of the British bark Cashmere, of Liverpool, to serve on the Queen as a common sailor.
1867		G.E. Clark Seven Years of a Sailor’s Life 160: Don’t you get shanghaied the first day.
1874		‘A.P.’ [Arthur Pember] Mysteries and Miseries 7: His occupation consists in [...] providing captains of ships with a man or two, when they are unable to make up their full complement of sailors, which means shanghaieing them.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 6/4: From preamble to finish this Civil Service Bill is a disgrace to those who framed it, and a lasting reproach to those guardians of the people’s rights who allowed it to be ‘shanghaied’ through Parliament in the shameful way it was.
1887		G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 82: Filthy, drunken and withal notorious ruffians, who, picked up in the slums of large seaport towns, are 'shanghaied' aboard by the infernal scoundrels that infest 'sailor towns' and gain a detestable living by first pandering to the follies and vices of seamen, and then, having appropriated their advance and stolen their outfits, kidnap them on board ship and abandon them to the ill-treatment of their officers and the inclemency of the stormy Atlantic.
1892		Illus. Police News 16 July 4/2: This individual was a young man who [...] made a living by drugging and robbing seamen just discharged from their ships, or helping to ‘Shanghai’ them.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 26 Aug. 5/4: If the culprits are arrested, their mates ‘shanghai’ the prosecutor out of the way, and the prosecution fails.
1898		F. Norris Moran of the Lady Letty 41: ‘It’s a capsule filled with a drug. You were shanghaied, son,’ said the Captain.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 135: The boss ham linked arms with me and shanghaied me into the ’bus.
1908		C. Tomalin Venturesome Tom 175: Evidently you have been ‘shanghaied,’ for it is evident you are no able seaman.
1916		A. Baer Rabid Rudolph 4 Dec. [synd. col.] Inmates of the All-American team are shanghaied from all over the U.S.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Apr. 19/2: We’ve gone and shanghaied Morrissey and his blanky menagerie of snakes.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 118: Don’t worry; I’m not going to shanghai you, and I’m not going to jaw you to death, either.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 49: You’ve shanghaied a certain little red-headed moll.
1930		L. Lower Here’s Luck 51: I had been practically abducted - shanghaied; but the thing was done.
1934		B. Traven Death Ship 323: They are ready for kidnapping, or for shanghaiing, if you like that expression any better.
1945		in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K (1978) 192: We didn’t ask to be sent up here. We were Shanghaied!
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 55: You just shanghai me over here into Minnesota!
1959		F. Norman Fings I i: Before I go and lose me grip, please / Shanghai me on a cruiser ship please.
1966		P. Tamony cited in Porter ‘Still More Ethnic and Place names as Derisive Adjectives’ Western Folklore XXV:1 41: One may now associate such ombre-colored photographs with the ominous beginnings of shanghaiing on the San Francisco waterfront.
1974		(con. late 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 577: He wondered why he felt shaky, frightened, shanghaied.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 128: You shanghaied me north, in the opposite direction.
1990		Beano Comic Library No. 190 33: Shanghaied by robots!
2000		Observer Rev. 7 May 1: The Brooklyn Dodgers were shanghaied 3,000 miles to California to become the LA Dodgers.
2006		Des Moines Register (IA) 17 Sept. 152/5: ‘Shanghai’d’ A kidnapping victim is the daughter of a crime lord.

2. (US) to trick, to cheat.

1877		Sth Australian Register (Adelaide) 31 Mar. 3/3: He was to go away by the mail next morning at 3 o’clock, but whether or not Kirkby wanted to ‘shanghai’ him of his money it was true that he neglected to call him, and he missed the mail.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 18/2: [T]here is a very firm and crystallised opinion spreading in political and other influential circles here that the ‘concrete missionary’ is wholly responsible for the Chinese outbreak, and worse – for the awful Shanghai-ing (lying) foisted by correspondents on the London press.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 589: shanghai, v. To cheat or bluff. ‘He really earned the game, but he let the other fellow shanghai him out of it.’.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 143: All of a suddent Stony felt shanghaied. Hustled.

3. in ext. use, to destroy, to remove.

1881

Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Jan. 9/2: The unfortunate Chinaman who had his eye ‘shanghaied’ by some respectably connected larrikins here has had to have that organ taken out.

4. (Aus. in fig. use of sense 2) .

1931

Australasian (Melbourne) 14 Nov. 43/4: ‘So he doesn’t know even now how we shanghaied him in to being a teetotaller’.

5. (Aus./N.Z. prison) to transfer to a new prison without prior warning; also as n.

1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxix 4/5: shanghai: Term used when a prisoner is transferred from one prison to another. Usually after the crim has been playing up like a bad mug.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 196: shanghai: to transfer a prisoner from one prison to another, especially if he causes, or is alleged to have caused, trouble.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Shanghai. To transfer a prisoner from one prison to another, especially if he causes trouble; often transferred without warning: or to transfer because some trouble is expected.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] The first sight to greet me is Carl’s furniture, which has been removed from his cell and stacked neatly on the landing. He must have been shanghaied out.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 163/1: shanghai n. 1 a transfer to another prison, usually unexpected, and the inmate unwilling.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] The authorities labelled the pair ‘stand-overs’ and shanghaied them to Grafton.

6. in weak use of sense 1, to compel or induce through force or deceit.

1966		Orlando Eve. Star (FL) 11 Oct. 14/3: The council was about to ‘shangahi’ [...] or otherwise compel [...] residents to join up.
1988		Hartford Courant (CT) 19 Oct. 83/1: That brings me to shanghai, a verb [...] you kidnap him or, these days, you ‘induce another to do something through force or deceit.

7. (US black) to cut someone.

2000

Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 shanghai Definition: 1.to cut.

8. (US black) to have sexual intercourse very energetically.

2000

Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 shanghai Definition: [...] 2. to fuck really hard Example: Yo nigga, I shanghai’d ma bitch last nite, she was screamin like a mo’fo.

9. (N.Z. prison) to betray a confidence, to gossip maliciously.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 163/1: shanghai n. 2 to betray a confidence; to spread malicious gossip.