commandeer
Americanverb (used with object)
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to order or force into active military service.
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to seize (private property) for military or other public use.
The police officer commandeered a taxi and took off after the getaway car.
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to seize arbitrarily.
verb
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to seize for public or military use
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to seize arbitrarily
Etymology
Origin of commandeer
1880–85; < Afrikaans kommandeer < French commander to command
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Specifically, Amodei, in an essay in January, wrote that AI could read and make sense of all the world’s electronic communications and, maybe, even in-person communications if recording devices can be commandeered.
Elsewhere, on the corner of Broadway and Fourth streets, Mero has commandeered a once historic building that’s been burned and left to rot.
From Los Angeles Times
I frowned at her, rubbing my stinging fingers as I shoved the piece of bread I’d been holding into my mouth before she commandeered it.
From Literature
He regularly turned up at the U.K.’s New York consulate, would commandeer the consulate’s car and visit friends, including Epstein, the book says.
Menendez explained that she needed more time to find the line between legitimate government activity and the unconstitutional “commandeering” of states by the federal government.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
