kidnapping

Pluralkidnappings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The crime of taking a person away by force or against their will, sometimes to demand a ransom.

   The kidnapping of the executive triggered a nationwide manhunt.

   Investigators treated the disappearance as a kidnapping rather than a runaway case.

   Similarabduction

   Note

   In the vocabulary of crime the word works both as a category and as a count. Uncountable, it names the offense itself (charged with kidnapping). Countable, it names a single case (a kidnapping, a string of kidnappings). Its core is unlawful seizure followed by moving or hiding the person. Ransom is a frequent motive but not what makes an act a kidnapping.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of kidnap.

   Armed men were kidnapping aid workers near the border.

   Kidnapping a diplomat carries severe international consequences.

   Note

   Here the -ing form is doing verb work. Because kidnap is transitive, it takes its victim directly as object: were kidnapping aid workers, kidnapping a diplomat. That bare object is the quickest way to tell it from the noun for the crime. The noun shares the spelling but puts of before the victim (the kidnapping of the executive), and it can be counted, with the plural kidnappings.

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