Abduct

verb

verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To take away by force; to carry away (a human being) wrongfully and usually with violence or deception; to kidnap. transitive

    "to abduct children"

  2. 2
    pull away from the body wordnet
  3. 3
    To draw away, as a limb or other part, from the median axis of the body. transitive
  4. 4
    take away to an undisclosed location against their will and usually in order to extract a ransom wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
kidnapkidnapabducecapturecarry awaycarry off

Example

More examples

"He was trying to abduct that girl."

Etymology

From Latin abductus, perfect passive participle of abduco (“to lead away”), from ab (“away”) + duco (“to lead”). * (physiology): Back-formation from abduction.

Related phrases

carry awaydraw awaytake away

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.