If people are press-ganged, they are captured and forced to join the army or navy. They left their villages to evade being press-ganged into the army The government denies that the women were press-ganged. + press-ganging press-ganging the press-ganging of young people into the country's armed forces
If you are press-ganged into doing something, you are made or persuaded to do it, even though you do not really want to. I was press-ganged into working in that business She was a volunteer, she hadn't had to be press-ganged. = force
In former times, a press-gang was a group of men who used to capture boys and men and force them to join the navy. a group of people in the past who took young men away using force in order to make them come to work on a ship