[Ads-l] to shanghai

[Jonathan Lighter]

1871: OED

1853 Southern Weekly Post (Raleigh, N.C.) (Jun. 11) 3: In San Francisco,
when a man has drank [sic] drugged liquor and been robbed, they say he has
been "Shanghaied."

1858 Muscatine [Ia.] Weekly Journal (July 230 4: "I don't wish I was never
married," said a man who was slightly shanghaied at home, "but I must
confess I envy a bachelor."   [A rather different nuance; see 1860. -JL]

1859 Brooklyn Daily Eagle (July 16) 2: When he got tight, he fell into bad
company, and got 'Shanghaied' on board the San Jacinto.

1860 Daily Post (Liverpool, Eng.) (March 28) 7: He told my boy that he was
'Shanghaied' on board. That means he was entrapped on board.

1862 Manchester [Eng.] Weekly Times (May 24) (Supp.) 266: What's
shanghaying? ...It's crimping a man when he's dead drunk or hocussed with
laudanum. The landlord draws his first month's pay in advance, of course,
for bringing a hand aboard.

Etc., etc. Also spelled "shanghae."

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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