Etymology

shanghai

Shang·hai
S1H4A1N1G2H4A1I1

Today it means: To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularly Full definition →

Scottish Gaelic seangan
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

shanghai · verb, noun1

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.

shanghai · noun, verb2

  1. Scottish Gaelic · derived fromseangan
  2. English todayshanghai

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

Shanghai · proper noun, noun3

  1. Chinese · derived from上海
  2. English todayShanghai

c. 1840, likely from an English-derived romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of Chinese 上海 (Shànghǎi), reinforced by Wade–Giles, Postal Romanization, and Hanyu Pinyin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.