serfdom

noun

serf·​dom ˈsərf-dəm 

-təm

: the condition of a tenant farmer bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of a landlord : the state or fact of being a serf

Despite obvious personal repugnance for serfdom, she enhanced the powers of nobles to demand more labor from their ill-treated and unorganized serfs.

—Carol S. Leonard

Servitude stretched from serfdom in Russia to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean to the indigenous slave systems in Africa that supplied both the Arabian and Atlantic trades.

—Adam Hochschild

Examples of serfdom in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

For them, freedom meant ending serfdom too. — Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025

Their desire for freedom was at the same time a denunciation of serfdom. — Michael Bruening, The Conversation, 25 Feb. 2025

As the Big Three continue to drive down the road to serfdom, car production will continue in the United States. — The Editors, National Review, 18 Sep. 2023

Russian officers still treated their peasant soldiers as little better than serfs (and serfdom would not be abolished in Russia for another 50 years). — Antony Beevor, Foreign Affairs, 29 Dec. 2022

Word History

Etymology

serf + -dom

First Known Use

1837, in the meaning defined above