KIDNAPPER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does kidnapper mean? 

• KIDNAPPER (noun)
  The noun KIDNAPPER has 1 sense:

1. someone who unlawfully seizes and detains a victim (usually for ransom)

  Familiarity information: KIDNAPPER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KIDNAPPER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who unlawfully seizes and detains a victim (usually for ransom)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

abductor; kidnaper; kidnapper; snatcher

Hypernyms ("kidnapper" is a kind of...):

captor; capturer (a person who captures and holds people or animals)

criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw (someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "kidnapper"):

crimp; crimper (someone who tricks or coerces men into service as sailors or soldiers)

seizer; shanghaier (a kidnapper who drugs men and takes them for compulsory service aboard a ship)

Derivation:

kidnap (take away to an undisclosed location against their will and usually in order to extract a ransom)

 Context examples 

The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated hand.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)