hijack
Americanverb (used with object)
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hijacks,
present (3rd person singular)
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hijacked,
past participle, past
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hijacking
present participle
-
to steal (cargo) from a truck or other vehicle after forcing it to stop.
to hijack a load of whiskey.
-
to rob (a vehicle) after forcing it to stop.
They hijacked the truck before it entered the city.
-
to seize (a vehicle) by force or threat of force.
-
to skyjack.
verb (used without object)
-
hijacks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hijacked,
past participle, past
-
hijacking
present participle
noun
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hijacks
plural
verb
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(tr) to seize, divert, or appropriate (a vehicle or the goods it carries) while in transit
to hijack an aircraft
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to rob (a person or vehicle) by force
to hijack a traveller
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(esp in the US during Prohibition) to rob (a bootlegger or smuggler) of his illicit goods or to steal (illicit goods) in transit
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hijacksimple
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hijackssimple
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have hijackedperfect
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has hijackedperfect
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am hijackingprogressive
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are hijackingprogressive
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is hijackingprogressive
-
have been hijackingperfect progressive
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has been hijackingperfect progressive
Past
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hijackedsimple
-
had hijackedperfect
-
was hijackingprogressive
-
were hijackingprogressive
-
had been hijackingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hijack
An Americanism dating back to 1920–25; back formation from hijacker
Explanation
To hijack a vehicle is to take control of it by force. Chances are you've seen an action movie in which some villains hijack a car or plane. To hijack a vehicle is to take it over illegally. Such a crime is called a hijack or a hijacking. Hijack can be used more generally to mean “take over.” If your friend has a bad habit of interrupting other people to talk about himself, you can say that he tends to hijack the conversation.
Vocabulary lists containing hijack
President Obama's U.N. Address
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Towers Falling
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Mid-Air
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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.
See Examples For:
There’s also a difference between not allowing something to bother you and sitting back while people hijack your meetings.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
McKinney’s sudden emergence in the race in May saw him hijack the incumbent’s support from law enforcement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
"A youth movement will be more effective when internal divisions are minimal, there is ideological plurality without antagonism, and there are few established parties that can easily hijack the movement's results."
From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2026
But between Sackett and EPA’s careful new wording, it won’t prove as easy to hijack as in the past.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025
The smile and accompanying crookedness hijack his whole face.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
Cyber-security firm Norton has dubbed the scams "reservation hijacks" because criminals have contacted Booking.com customers pretending to be hotels in order to trick victims into sending them money based on bogus reservation problems.
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
The pilot episode of “The X-Files” spinoff “The Lone Gunmen,” featured a pilot who hijacks an airplane and flies it into the World Trade Center six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
Instead they have strands of RNA floating around in the cell waiting to be activated, when the virus infects an organism and hijacks its cellular production facilities.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 4, 2024
Some questions you can ask yourself are: “Why am I getting triggered? What’s happening to my brain when anxiety hijacks it? Can I tolerate this feeling without urgently acting on it?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
They subvert their hosts' cellular programming to make copies of themselves, just as a computer virus hijacks an infected computer and causes it to send out more copies of the virus.
From The Public Domain Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
In April, officials had said there were 17 crew members on board when the vessel was hijacked.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
One recently hijacked profile belonged to a dentist in Chile.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
One of the jets hijacked on 9/11 hit the Pentagon in Washington, killing 184 people who were remembered by a single bell tolling as their names were read out.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Director Paul Greengrass, then most recently of “The Bourne Supremacy,” took on the hijacked flight whose passengers fought back before it crashed in Pennsylvania.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
I’m pretty sure I’ve been hijacked and am no longer at the brain controls.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
The race to automate an ever wider range of workplace tasks is creating an army of inside would-be hackers, with cybercriminals hijacking companies’ internal AI agents to steal sensitive business data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
In the letter terminating Pelley's contract on Tuesday, Bilton accused him of hijacking the staff meeting to disparage Bilton, his qualificatons and intentions with "remarkable incivility and contempt".
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
Cybercriminals are hijacking companies’ internal artificial-intelligence agents to steal sensitive business data, creating new insider threat risks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
“Their hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their AI products — a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 2, 2026
All of my bravado from hijacking Elliot’s simulation test was draining away, and I was left with a familiar feeling of uncertainty.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
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.
