variants also highjack
Definition of hijacknext
as in to commandeer
to take control of (a vehicle) by force some loser tried to hijack the plane with a toy gun

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of hijack The company didn’t acknowledge Wardle’s finding that a simple ClickFix attack was all that was needed to hijack an account. — Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 20 Oct. 2026 The problem is that the spectacle has hijacked the meaning of the day. — Ollivier Pourriol, Vanity Fair, 19 Oct. 2026 Even the risk of hijacking raw computing power on chips is not new. — Peter Hall, Scientific American, 15 Oct. 2026 The Omani Flydubai co-pilot who hijacked a passenger plane last week planned to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion International Airport in central Israel, UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif al Shamsi said on Friday. — David Zimmermann, The Washington Examiner, 9 Oct. 2026 See All Example Sentences for hijack
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hijack
Verb
  • This leads to River commandeering a woman’s car and inadvertently gaining a partner in her dog Monty, who doesn’t figure into the action but is most assuredly a Very Good Boy.
    — Scott Tobias, Vulture, 14 Oct. 2026
  • In the most infamous example, a swarm of 1,000 Open AI agents escaped their sandbox, commandeered online message boards to communicate with each other, and breached the systems of the open source AI community Hugging Face.
    — Frank Landymore, Futurism, 14 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • Experts worry federal law enforcement could potentially use those false claims — or others generated this year — as pretext to try to seize ballots during the counting period, or interfere in the process in some other way.
    — Miles Parks, NPR, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Those weaknesses could enable cybercriminals to seize control of unprotected website servers, install malware, pilfer customer data and even take sites down completely.
    — Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 22 Oct. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Hijack.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hijack. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

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