KIDNAPPING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does kidnapping mean? 

• KIDNAPPING (noun)
  The noun KIDNAPPING has 1 sense:

1. (law) the unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person against their will and holding them in false imprisonment

  Familiarity information: KIDNAPPING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KIDNAPPING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(law) the unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person against their will and holding them in false imprisonment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

kidnapping; snatch

Hypernyms ("kidnapping" is a kind of...):

capture; seizure (the act of taking of a person by force)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Derivation:

kidnap (take away to an undisclosed location against their will and usually in order to extract a ransom)

 Context examples 

Kidnapping a German subject. And stealing his private papers.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I sat in silence wondering what on earth could be his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The police imagine, I take it, that this Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way obtained a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the horse, with the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)