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# shanghai

proper noun (Shanghai — a city); verb (shanghai, shanghais, shanghaied, shanghaiing — old, informal)

«shanghai» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. Shanghai is a huge city on the east coast of China, one of the biggest cities in the world, with a famous river front and tall towers. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#m1)
2. (old, informal) To shanghai someone is to trick or force them into doing something they did not want to do; long ago it meant kidnapping sailors to work on ships. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#m2)

### In the lessons

In geography lessons Shanghai is an example of a megacity and a busy sea port. The verb is old-fashioned and appears in sea stories and jokes: «I got shanghaied into tidying the classroom» means you were tricked into it. The Chinese name means roughly «on the sea».

### Examples

- Shanghai is one of the biggest cities on Earth. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x1)
- My cousin flew to Shanghai for work. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x2)
- Shanghai has one of the busiest ports in the world. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x3)
- The Shanghai Tower is very tall. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x4)
- In the old story, a sailor was shanghaied onto a ship. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x5)
- I was shanghaied into helping with the washing-up! [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x6)
- Lots of people in Shanghai speak Shanghainese as well as Mandarin. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/#x7)

### Note

Write the city with a capital S. The verb is usually lower case and passive: «be shanghaied». Pronounced «shang-HY». The verb is not rude, just old and jokey.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «shanghai» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shanghai/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«shanghai» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/shanghai.html) on Mova free.