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

Natchez was considered the ideal location for creating an economy centered on slave labor that generated cotton. —Usa Today Network, USA Today, 10 June 2026

Rowland’s works often reveal the mechanisms by which institutions continue to profit from slave labor. —Emily Watlington, ARTnews.com, 24 May 2026

Delinquent financing, lawsuits, project delays, construction blunders and defects, evidence that some workers were forced to live in an East Bay warehouse, allegations of slave labor, and a death haunted the property while Z&L owned it. —George Avalos, Mercury News, 19 May 2026

Many of the workers were members of the Nisenan and Miwok tribes whom Sutter forced into slave labor. —Jennifer Wilson, New Yorker, 4 May 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