A slang term for the act of drugging and kidnapping someone to work on a ship, derived from an old practice decades ago of kidnapping sailors to man ships, often bound for China

Nowadays, the term can be used to refer to someone or something that has been taken in an unexpected and unwelcome direction. You can be shanghaied by your Aunt Gladys into painting her house. A project can be shanghaied by a manager to make it more profitable but less useful. A meeting can be shanghaied by people who want to discuss something that's not on the agenda. And this node was shangaied away from a decent discussion of a major Chinese city by this writeup.

This was also known as crimping, if you'd prefer to use a term that doesn't imply that Chinese people are all kidnappers.