hijack

verb

hi·​jack ˈhī-ˌjak 

hijacked; hijacking; hijacks

transitive verb

1

a

: to steal (goods in transit) by stopping a vehicle

Shipping cargo internationally, however, is rife with pitfalls. Shipments may be stolen, hijacked, destroyed, damaged or delayed.

—David Drake

A shipment of … albums by British pop idol Sting was hijacked in transit while being transported from Germany to an Italian warehouse.

—Willem Hoos

At last count, Parmalat had given away 5.2 million stuffed animals in a massive Brazilian promotion, not including the truckload of furry animals hijacked earlier this year by thieves too impatient to collect their own Parmalat labels.

—Laurel Wentz

b

: to commandeer (a vehicle in transit)

"… One day his truck was hijacked, probably by deserters, and he was wandering around and decided to go back to a village where he had met a young woman that he rather liked. …"

—Charles Glass

often, specifically : to commandeer (a flying airplane) usually by coercing the pilot

In June 1976, an Air France Airbus was hijacked in Athens … and flown at gunpoint to Uganda's primary airport …

—Radio Times

A man claiming to have a bomb attempted to hijack a Pegasus Airlines plane from Ukraine on Friday and take it to Sochi, where the Winter Olympics were just beginning.

—Brian Resnick and Matt Berman

c

: to stop and steal from (a vehicle in transit)

Police are hunting two men who hijacked a truck at knifepoint and made off with its … load of whisky.

—Commercial Motor (Sutton, England)

d

: kidnap

A robber who claimed he was hijacked from home … to rob a corner shop has been jailed for four years.

—Evening Gazette (Middlesborough, England)

2

a

: to take or take control of (something) as if by hijacking

… hackers hijacked the accounts of high-profile Twitter users …

—Queenie Wong

To reproduce, the virus infects a cell and hijacks the cell's protein-making machinery.

—The Springfield (Massachusetts) Union-News

… distinguished themselves from the artsy types, who they believed had hijacked punk from "the real kids" …

—Simon Reynolds

often, specifically : to change the topic or focus of (something, such as a conversation) : redirect

Don't hijack threads. Burger King wouldn't hand out flyers in front of a Chipotle, so why would you want to hawk your business on an unrelated Facebook thread …?

—Jennifer Chang

All of this strife is because Idaho's political machinery is enabling isolated and extremist visions from small patches of Idaho to hijack the conversation.

—Mike Satz

It's sad that sex scandals continue to hijack attention from economic, educational and health care issues.

—Barbara Lippert

b

: to subject to extortion or swindling

… hijacks them into spending nearly a billion dollars …

—Dave Armstrong

hijack noun

plural hijacks

hijacker noun

plural hijackers

Synonyms

• commandeer

Examples of hijack in a Sentence

He hijacked a truck, threatening the driver at gunpoint.

A band of robbers hijacked the load of furs from the truck.

A group of terrorists hijacked the plane.

The organization has been hijacked by radicals.

Recent Examples on the Web

Still, the email references commercial surveillance provider NSO Group, an Israeli company notorious for developing the Pegasus spyware, which can sometimes hijack a smartphone simply by sending the user a single message. —Michael Kan, PCMAG, 11 Apr. 2024

The code, known as a backdoor, would allow its creator to hijack a user’s SSH connection and secretly run their own code on that user’s machine. —Kevin Roose, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2024

Last week a man with an airsoft gun hijacked a Metro bus, and the transit system has been tarred with news reports of random crimes, though data show that violent crime on the system has been ticking downward. —Rachel Uranga, Los Angeles Times, 29 Mar. 2024

Like Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, Ticketmaster queues (and even ticket scammers) hijacked the market – albeit to a lesser degree. —The Enquirer, 26 Mar. 2024

Armed Palestinian groups infiltrated the border in the 1970s and 1980s, entering homes, hijacking buses and taking schoolchildren hostage. —Isabel Kershner Sergey Ponomarev, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2024

In 2020, Zoom, Facebook and YouTube shut down an online event featuring Leila Khaled, a Palestinian activist who spent time in prison for hijacking planes. —Simone Weichselbaum, NBC News, 20 Mar. 2024

What happens when the promise of a better life has been hijacked by insidious political forces? —Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 17 Mar. 2024

By hijacking these calcium-dependent processes, lead disrupts many normal functions ranging from neurological function to cardiovascular health. —Aaron Specht, The Conversation, 7 Mar. 2024

Word History

Etymology

origin unknown

First Known Use

1923, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Kids Definition

hijack

verb

hi·​jack

variants also highjack

ˈhī-ˌjak

1

: to stop and steal from a moving vehicle

hijack a truck

hijack a load of furs

2

: to force a pilot to fly an aircraft where one wants

hijacker noun

Legal Definition

hijack

transitive verb

hi·​jack

ˈhī-ˌjak

: to seize possession or control of (a vehicle) from another person by force or threat of force

specifically : to seize possession or control of (an aircraft) especially by forcing the pilot to divert the aircraft to another destination

hijack noun

hijacker noun