Press-gang

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A body of men employed to force others (impress them) into military service, especially naval service.

    ""If this is a press gang," Lyle remarked, "you should know that my diet is extremely poor, I'm too tall for trenches and I blow away in a light breeze.""

Verb
  1. 1
    To force (someone) into military or naval service. transitive
  2. 2
    To coerce (somebody) into doing something that they are reluctant to do. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
pressshanghai

Example

More examples

""If this is a press gang," Lyle remarked, "you should know that my diet is extremely poor, I'm too tall for trenches and I blow away in a light breeze.""

Etymology

From press + gang.

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