slave owner

noun

variants or less commonly slaveowner

ˈslāv-ˌō-nər 

plural slave owners also slaveowners

: someone who holds one or more people involuntarily and under threat of violence within a system of chattel slavery : slaveholder

As the fugitive slave and later abolitionist James W. C. Pennington noted, every change in the financial, social, and personal affairs of a slave owner and his or her children could have traumatic consequences for enslaved people.

—Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

… as the debate about reparations for slavery intensifies, it is important to remember that slaveowners, far more than enslaved people, were always the primary beneficiaries of public largess.

—Tera W. Hunter

Examples of slave owner in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 1918, it was initially named for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general and slave owner. —Brian Bennett, Time, 10 June 2025

John Tyler, a Virginian slave owner and lifelong Democrat, served as the vice president to William Henry Harrison and became president quite unexpectedly after Harrison died suddenly three weeks after his inauguration — the first president to die while in office. —/ Cbs News, CBS News, 28 May 2025

In the post-slavery period, former slave owners fought to prevent racial integration. —Gary Franks, Hartford Courant, 26 Apr. 2025

Washington gave prior slave owners and like-minded folks the freedom to make Jim Crow – racial discrimination and segregation – the de facto law of the land in the South. —Gary Franks, Hartford Courant, 1 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1789, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for slave owner

• donor
• kroner
• kronor
• loner
• stoner
• toner
• homeowner
• landowner
• shipowner