What does carjacking mean?

Definitions for carjacking
ˈkɑrˌdʒæk ɪŋcar·jack·ing

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word carjacking.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. carjackingnoun

    the violent theft of an occupied car

GCIDE

  1. carjackingnoun

    the forcible taking of a car while the driver is in it; the robber may force the driver out, force the driver to drive while under threat of harm, or be forced to relinquish the controls while also being forced to remain in the car. In the latter two cases, the act also constitutes a kidnapping.

Wiktionary

  1. carjackingnoun

    The violent hijacking of a vehicle and sometimes its driver.

  2. Etymology: Portmanteau of car and hijacking

Wikipedia

  1. Carjacking

    Carjacking is a robbery in which the item taken over is a motor vehicle. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is usually in the presence and knowledge of the victim. A common crime in many places in the world, carjacking has been the subject of legislative responses, criminology studies, and prevention efforts. Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars containing valuable cargo are common targets of carjacking attempts. Carjacking usually involves physical violence to the victim, or using the victim as a hostage. In rare cases, carjacking may also involve sexual assault.

ChatGPT

  1. carjacking

    Carjacking is a criminal act where a person uses threat, intimidation, force, or violence to unlawfully take possession of a motor vehicle from its lawful driver or owner, often while the vehicle is occupied.

Wikidata

  1. Carjacking

    Carjacking is the unlawful seizure of automobile. It's also armed assault when the vehicle is occupied. Historically, such as in the rash of semi-trailer truck hijackings during the 1960s, the general term hijacking was used for that type of vehicle abduction, which did not often include kidnapping of the driver, and concentrated on the theft of the load, rather than the vehicle itself. During the later day car theft crime, typically, the carjacker is armed, and the driver is forced out of the car with the threat of bodily injury. In other rarer cases, the driver is kidnapped under the assault by a weapon and is retained as a passenger under duress, or made to drive his or her abductor. Women are particularly victimized in this latter method. The word is a portmanteau of car and hijacking. The term was coined by reporter Scott Bowles and EJ Mitchell, an editor with The Detroit News. The News first used the term in an August 28, 1991 report on the murder of Ruth Wahl, a 22-year-old Detroit drugstore cashier who was killed when she would not surrender her Suzuki Sidekick, and in an investigative report examining the rash of what police called at the time "robbery armed unlawful driving away an automobile", plaguing Detroit.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of carjacking in Chaldean Numerology is: 4

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of carjacking in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of carjacking in a Sentence

  1. Mary Gay Scanlon:

    What happened yesterday was traumatic, but I refuse to let it dampen my love for the city of Philadelphia or the gem that is FDR Park, the fact is, this type of crime can happen anywhere and to anyone — yesterday it happened to me. Sadly, we know that over the course of the last year or two, since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen a spike in certain crimes across the country, including gun violence and carjacking.

  2. Jessica Nemelka:

    We are absolutely relieved, now that we know it's more like a random carjacking, it's not more comforting — nothing could make this comforting — but it was absolutely the wrong place, wrong time for her. And that's unfortunate, but it's better than being someone that she knew who targeted her for a personal reason.

  3. Mike Verden:

    This is absolutely tangible proof of fallout from defunding Cleveland Police, defunding Cleveland Police has these types of residual effects – you have a decrease in staffing. So, the less police you have, the less coverage you have. And the less coverage you have, the more crime you have. While some carjacking incidents result in vehicles being sold on the black market to be stripped down for their parts, there's been more of an increase in the Midwest of those vehicles taken in carjacking being then used to commit other crimes, such as smash-and-grab robberies, Verden said. He said other crimes, like home burglaries, are down because more people are home during the pandemic.

  4. Aisha Braveboy:

    We have someone who's not even old enough to drive, carjacking and driving, oftentimes across county lines or in multiple jurisdictions. So it creates a lot of problems, not just for the victim of that carjacking but for all motorists on our roadways.

  5. Ashan Benedict:

    Studies have also shown us that individuals will graduate to pulling the trigger in dangerous crimes or homicides, they may start out using that gun and practice destruction of property, stop sign shootings, vehicle shootings. They may graduate to an armed carjacking or an armed robbery. And then all of a sudden that gun is being discharged and lives are being lost.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

carjacking#100000#111401#333333

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"carjacking." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/carjacking>.

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