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To emancipate someone (including oneself) is to free them from restraint, control, or the power of another, and especially to free them from bondage or enslavement. It follows that the noun emancipation refers to the act or practice of emancipating. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, for example, ordered that enslaved people living in the Confederate states be released from the bonds of ownership and made free people. It took more than two years for news of the proclamation to reach the enslaved communities in the distant state of Texas. The arrival of the news on June 19 (of 1865) is now celebrated as a national holiday—Juneteenth or Emancipation Day.
Examples of emancipation in a Sentence
Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 8 July 2025
Each of the 1800s-era houses — three of which are now UNESCO Sites of Memory — offers a window into a different chapter of Black life in Houston, from enslavement to emancipation.
—Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman, 2 July 2025
In a set of diagrams prepared for the 1900 Paris Exposition, Du Bois showed the fortunes of Blacks in the United States since emancipation.
—Jonathon Keats, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
The regional celebrations around emancipation have gotten smaller over the decades, but many residents and activists in the region asserted that events like the Eighth of August will remain for decades to come.
—Phillip M. Bailey, USA Today, 20 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for emancipation
Cite this Entry
“Emancipation.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emancipation. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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emancipation
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emancipation
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