v. [f. KID sb.1 5 c + NAP v., to snatch, seize (cf. NAB); possibly as a back-formation from KIDNAPPER. The words no doubt originated among the class that followed the practice of kidnapping. Bailey, Johnson, Ash, etc., stress kidna·p, which is still usual in the north.] Originally, to steal or carry off (children or others) in order to provide servants or laborers for the American plantations; hence, in general use, to steal (a child), to carry off (a person) by illegal force.
1682. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 183. Mr. John Wilmore haveing kidnapped a boy of 13 years of age to Jamaica, a writt de homine replegiando was delivered to the sheriffs of London against him.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2360/3. John Dykes … Convicted of Kidnapping, or Enticing away, His Majesty’s Subjects, to go Servants into the Foreign Plantations.
1693. I. Mather, Cases Consc. (1862), 241. A Servant, who was Spirited or Kidnapt (as they call it) into America.
1723. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 266. I will kidnap her and send her to Virginia.
1809. J. Adams, Wks. (1854), IX. 316. The practice in Holland of kidnapping men for settlers or servants in Batavia.
1835. G. P. R. James, Gipsy, II. vii. 245–6. You go kidnapping people’s children, you do, you thieves of human flesh!
1884. Pae, Eustace, 103. I am not a common seaman, to be kidnapped in this fashion.
fig. 1732. Swift, Corr., Wks. 1841, II. 669/2. We [the Irish] have but one dunce of irrefragable fame,… and the Scots have kidnapped him from us.
1850. Kingsley, Alton Locke, x. The people who see their children thus kidnapped into hell.
Hence Kidnapped ppl. a., Kidnapping vbl. sb. and ppl. a., Kidnappingly adv.
1798. Anti-Jacobin, 22 Jan. (1852), 47. Courteny’s *kidnapp’d rhymes.
1861. Times, 10 July, 8/5. Full freights of kidnapped Chinamen.
1878. Gladstone, Prim. Homer, 110. The kidnapped victims whom Phœnician vessels brought from abroad.
1682. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 187. The witnesses against him were some to prove that there was in generall such a trade as *kidnapping or spiriting away children.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. xxv. 219. The other remaining offence, that of kidnapping, being the forcible abduction or stealing away of man, woman, or child from their own country, and selling them into another.
1830. Scott, Demonol., iv. 127. This kidnapping of the human race, so peculiar to the whole Elfin people.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq., I. v. 365. The kidnapping of persons of free condition was not unknown.
1887. Athenæum, 19 March, 375/3. The *kidnapping grandmother … is not so repellent as might be supposed.
1838. Tait’s Mag., V. 206. I hold it to have been wickedly,… crimpingly, *kidnappingly done.
