slave labor

noun

variants 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

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

Stories like Igra’s are uncommon in part because the Nazis killed many Jewish children who weren’t old enough to provide slave labor. —Graham Womack, Sacbee.com, 14 Apr. 2026

The United States last year also blocked imports from a major South Korean salt farm accused of using slave labor, becoming the first trade partner to take punitive action against a decadeslong problem on salt farms in islands off the country’s southwest coast. —ABC News, 10 Apr. 2026

At the Nuremberg Trials, he was found guilty of war crimes; his trial focused on his use of Russian slave labor at his businesses during the war. —Frank Landymore, Futurism, 18 Mar. 2026

According to the filings, two DOGE employees sourced short summaries of the projects they had been instructed to evaluate—which included a documentary about slave labor during the Holocaust and a documentary about the Colfax Massacre—from the internet. —News Desk, Artforum, 8 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1802, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for slave labor

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