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 … 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

Campbell is raising two children and working two jobs at Menokin, a historical site originally owned by Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a slave owner. — Ayesha Rascoe, NPR, 1 Nov. 2026

In 2014, Fassbender received his first Oscar nomination for playing slave owner Edwin Epps in 12 Years a Slave. — Danny Horn, Entertainment Weekly, 21 Aug. 2026

Dent was a wealthy Maryland slave owner whose poor health and financial ruin at the end of the Civil War left him living out his final years at the White House with his daughter and son-in-law. — Sophie Clausen, PEOPLE, 17 Aug. 2026

These harming practices were sometimes directed at slave owners. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1789, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for slave owner

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