Gnome-napping

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A prank in which one steals a garden gnome and then either leaves it posed in a public place or photographs it in front of tourist locations. countable, uncountable

    "There has always been plenty of gnome-napping in Adelaide, but there were no ransom notes for our dog, and it didn't turn up in any obvious places such as on the university lawns."

Example

More examples

"There has always been plenty of gnome-napping in Adelaide, but there were no ransom notes for our dog, and it didn't turn up in any obvious places such as on the university lawns."

Etymology

Blend of gnome + kidnapping.

More for "gnome-napping"

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