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

This week, Robert Harrell, a rising senior at Martin Luther King High School, wrote about the numerous streets and schools in Nashville bearing the names of former slave owners, klan members and other racists. —Andrea Williams, The Tennessean, 12 July 2025

England, when slave owners who wanted to flaunt their wealth began dressing their slaves in expensive clothing. —Nicole Fallert, USA Today, 6 May 2025

This is exactly what former slave owners believed in the 19th Century. —Gary Franks, Hartford Courant, 26 Apr. 2025

Of the slave owners, Gates Jr. said eight were also Black. —James Bickerton, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 June 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