abduction

¹ American  

[ab-duhk-shuhn] / æbˈdʌk ʃən /

noun

1. act of abducting.

2. the state of being abducted.

3. Law. the illegal carrying or enticing away of a person, especially by interfering with a relationship, such as the taking of a child from their parent.

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abduction ² American  

[ab-duhk-shuhn] / æbˈdʌk ʃən /

noun

Logic.

1. a syllogism whose major premise is certain but whose minor premise is probable.

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abduction British  

/ æbˈdʌkʃən /

noun

1. the act of taking someone away by force or cunning; kidnapping

2. the action of certain muscles in pulling a leg, arm, etc away from the median axis of the body

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Etymology

Origin of abduction¹

First recorded in 1620–30; abduct + -ion

Origin of abduction²

First recorded in 1690–1700, abduction is from the New Latin word abductiōn- (stem of abductiō; translation of Greek apagōgḗ ). See abduct, -ion

Explanation

If you're the victim of an abduction, you've been carried away against your will — kidnapped. The word comes from Latin ab "away" + ducere "lead." Abduction is also when you move your arm or leg away from your midline. "The Abduction from the Seraglio" is the English title of a famous Mozart opera, in which a nobleman tries to rescue his betrothed, who has been captured — abducted — by pirates and sold into a pasha's harem, or seraglio. At the end of the opera, the pasha is overwhelmed with mercy and frees everyone and sends them home. So there really isn’t an abduction from the seraglio; the pasha lets everybody go.

Example Sentences

Perhaps a lot like the anguish that veteran Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio imbues in nearly every scene of his unblinking historical melodrama “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara.”

From Los Angeles Times • May 31, 2024

In the film “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” a representative of Pope Pius IX arrives at a Jewish family’s home in Bologna, Italy, on a June night in 1858.

From New York Times • May 23, 2024

Matthew Bowman’s The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America offers the best and most comprehensive attempt yet to answer these and other questions.

From Slate • Sep. 11, 2023

The most recent figures show that its International Child Abduction and Contact Unit - which helps to return children taken overseas by one parent without the other's consent - is dealing with 1,341 cases.

From BBC • Sep. 4, 2023

Abduction clubs existed whose object was the counteracting of unjust freaks of fortune by tying up heiresses to penniless sparks.

From My Lords of Strogue, Vol. I (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Wingfield, Lewis

Related Words

• kidnapping
• rape
• seizure
• theft