slave labor

noun

variants US slave labor or chiefly British slave labour

1

: work that is done by enslaved people or by people who are treated as though they are enslaved

prisoners being forced to do slave labor

a slave labor camp

2

: enslaved people doing work

The pyramids were built by slave labor.

slave laborer noun

(chiefly US) or chiefly British slave labourer

plural slave laborers

… The Statue of Freedom—the figure of a Native American woman warrior that stands on the dome—was cast in bronze by slave laborers in 1863 and hoisted up there.

—Jack E. White

Examples of slave labor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There, the soldiers were sentenced to slave labor in the frozen north. —Antony Beevor, Foreign Affairs, 7 May 2025

The factory was moved to a new facility near the Dachau concentration and Allach is alleged to have used slave labor from the camp (some sources dispute this). —Tom Teicholz, Forbes.com, 29 Apr. 2025

Saw tells his followers he was forced into slave labor at an Imperial work camp on his home planet Onderon. —Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 30 Apr. 2025

The country of slave labor and KKK patrols isn’t far removed from the country where Oscar Grant III, the subject of Coogler’s first feature, Fruitvale Station (2013), was shot in the back and murdered by a cop who would only serve an 11-month sentence. —Richard Newby, HollywoodReporter, 22 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1802, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for slave labor

• belabor
• nonlabor
• neighbor
• neighbour
• saber
• sabre
• tabor