Other forms: kidnapped, kidnapping, kidnaps
To kidnap is to take a person away by force and demand money for them. Kidnap the heir, kidnapped for ransom, a kidnapping.
Money is not always the motive — political and parental kidnapping are both common — but it is what the word implies. The origin is grim and literal: kid meant a child and nap meant to snatch, and the word named the seizing of children to be shipped to the colonies as labour.
1verbkidnapTo take a person away by force and demand money.
“The gang planned to kidnap the businessman's son and ask for a ransom.”
kidnap is a crime.
Also accepted in games: abduct
Kid plus nap, meaning to snatch, from about 1680. It first named the stealing of children to be shipped to the colonies.
From kid + nap. Originally Thieves' cant, referring to the practice of stealing children and shipping them to colonies or plantations as laborers. First attested c. 1680.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA