slavery

noun

slav·​ery ˈslā-v(ə-)rē 

plural slaveries

1

a

: the practice or institution of holding people as chattel involuntarily and under threat of violence

In reality, though, African forms of slavery didn't compare with the racialized industrial variants that Western empires unleashed upon the world. … Here in the United States … the enslaved were relegated to subhuman status for generations.

—Julian Lucas

Slavery officially ended in New Jersey in 1804, but in practice some people remained slaves until 1865, when the ratification of the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States.

—Suzanne Travers

b

: the state of a person who is forced usually under threat of violence to labor for the profit of another

[Frederick] Douglass, born a slave in Maryland in 1818, escaped from slavery at the age of twenty and quickly emerged as a major orator and leader of the antislavery crusade.

—Manning Marable

The organization says it has helped 135 victims escape sex slavery over the past 10 years.

—Audrey McAvoy

c

: a situation or practice in which people are entrapped (as by debt) and exploited

… the unit has freed more than 26,000 workers nationwide from debt slavery. Under the practice, common in the Amazon, poor laborers are lured to remote spots where they rack up debts to plantation owners who charge exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.

—Vivian Sequera

Many members of my own family, including my mother and father, fled their work as sharecroppers in the South. They left for good reason: the profession offered no future and was little more than wage slavery.

—Will Allen

2

: submission to a dominating influence

slavery to habit

… it will probably be left to the next administration to act hopefully in a bold and visionary manner to free us from our slavery to oil.

—Alon Ben-Meir

Synonyms

• bondage
• enslavement
• servility
• servitude
• thrall
• thralldom
• thraldom
• yoke

Examples of slavery in a Sentence

Frederick Douglass was central advocate for the abolition of slavery.

My dad put up with the slavery of working in the coal mines every day of his adult life.

Recent Examples on the Web

The United States is reaching its highest level of immigration in a century, and nowhere has the change been greater than in the historical South, where the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow once kept immigration at bay. —Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY, 12 July 2024

Others have asked whether these physical remnants of slavery should be demolished like Confederate monuments. —Whitney Nell Stewart, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 July 2024

But General Marcus Acacius’ (Pascal) invasion of the city forces Lucius into slavery. —Zac Ntim, Deadline, 9 July 2024

Many of them were enslavers, although some were the first in the world to legally abolish African slavery. —Gordon S. Wood, Washington Post, 2 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1548, in the meaning defined at sense 1b

Phrases Containing slavery

• anti-slavery
• chattel slavery
• debt slavery
• sex slavery
• wage slavery
• white slavery

Kids Definition

slavery

noun

slav·​ery ˈslāv-(ə-)rē 

1

: drudgery, toil

2

a

: the state of a person who is held in forced servitude

b

: the practice of slaveholding