shanghai
verb

- to force or trick (someone) into joining a ship's crew; (more generally) to force or coerce into doing something.

- to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug; to put by trickery into an undesirable position.

- to force someone to do something or go somewhere they do not want to.

- to kidnap (a person) for service aboard a ship, especially after drugging; to force or trick into a compromising or undesirable position.

Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN
The verb comes from Shanghai, the Chinese port.

In 19th century American English, the verb "shanghai" meant obtaining sailors through force, deception, drink or drugs and putting them aboard ships. A distant port such as Shanghai made escape difficult. The first known usage of this meaning was in 1854.

The place name comes from Chinese Shànghǎi (上海), roughly “on” or “above the sea”: shàng = above/on and hǎi = sea.

By the early twentieth century, shanghai had acquired its modern figurative sense: to manoeuvre someone into doing something they never intended to do.

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THE PORT THAT NEVER SLEEPS
The Port of Shanghai, the busiest container gateway on Earth. Handling over 47 million shipping containers every year, its metal boxes could wrap around the entire equator over 5 times.

Because the natural coastline was too shallow for mega-ships, engineers simply built an offshore terminal twenty miles out at sea. Connected by a sweeping ocean bridge, the Yangshan deep-water hub runs almost entirely on software. Red gantry cranes glide quietly along tracks, while driverless electric trucks shuffle massive steel boxes around the clock with millimetric accuracy. Massive ships the length of four football fields arrive, get stripped of cargo, reloaded, and sent back across the ocean in under a day.

Every gadget, pair of sneakers, and solar panel you own likely passed through this relentless, hyper-efficient marvel. It is a triumph of modern engineering. Shanghai can pluck your parcel from a skyscraper-sized stack, pack it onto a freighter, navigate 6,000 miles of open ocean, and clear international customs in record time.

Yet the moment it reaches your town, it can spend six days sitting in a warehouse five miles away because "local courier delivery is currently experiencing unexpected delays".

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS 

abduct, coerce, commandeer, compel, con, deceive, dragoon, dupe, force, hoodwink, hijack, impress, inveigle, kidnap, manoeuvre, press-gang, railroad, SHANGHAI, snatch, trick (into)

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

"The etymology of the verb SHANGHAI explains how this city developed into the biggest shipping hub the world has ever seen."

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