PEONAGE Synonyms: 29 Similar and Opposite Words

peonage

noun

Definition of peonage

as in serfdom

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of peonage Many Black Americans fled this violent system of peonage and terror in the Great Migration, moving to cities such as Gary and Pittsburgh for a better life. — John E. Jackson Sr, Chicago Tribune, 16 June 2026 Ryan Coogler didn’t want to hide anymore The film conveys two forms of peonage prominent in the 1930s South—labor arrangements not far removed from slavery. — Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 2 May 2025 The Black community’s relationship with growing food is colored by exploitive practices, from slavery to sharecropping, tenant farming and peonage, or debt servitude. — Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024 Convict leasing, also called peonage, juxtaposed the infrastructure of the Old English debtor’s prison with the barbarism of chattel slavery to bolster American capitalism. — Phillip Vance Smith, JSTOR Daily, 1 Feb. 2024 See All Example Sentences for peonage

Recent Examples of Synonyms for peonage

Noun

Or that Franciscan fathers — members of an order dedicated to lives of poverty and humility — forced tribes to give up their foods, customs and religion in the name of Christ, rewarding them with serfdom.

— Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 4 July 2026
Datebook Picks If Firs is a vestige of serfdom, Joseph O’Malley as eternal graduate student Pétya forecasts the coming revolution.

— Theater Critic, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Feb. 2026

Definition of serfdom

Noun

On the other hand, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims that withholding privileges or credits constituted involuntary servitude.

— Julia Bowling, The Conversation, 29 May 2026
In 2022, an eighty-year-old Pakistani American woman, Zahida Aman, and two of her sons were found guilty of forcing a woman from Pakistan into domestic servitude at their home in Virginia.

— Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, New Yorker, 18 May 2026

Definition of servitude

Noun

This document shows what a national decision on slavery in one of the world’s biggest empires at the time could mean for other territories.

— Kaitlyn Harvey, AJC.com, 23 July 2026
Under the 1866 treaty, the tribe abolished slavery and granted citizenship to the formerly enslaved.

— ABC News, ABC News, 23 July 2026

Definition of slavery

Noun

The National Park Service has quietly updated a Philadelphia historic site by installing controversial displays that critics say downplay the brutality of slavery and gloss over President George Washington's enslavement of people.

— Phaedra Trethan, USA Today, 21 July 2026
In Whitehead’s hands, that imagining takes us through both time and place while making visceral the horrors of enslavement.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2026

Definition of enslavement

Noun

From the earliest pioneering expeditions and nighttime escapes from bondage to the modern-day road trip, Americans are a people on the move – restless, ambitious and innovative.

— Karissa Waddick, USA Today, 4 July 2026
Slave owners insisted that human bondage fulfilled God’s will.

— Jim Rasenberger, The Atlantic, 4 July 2026

Definition of bondage

Noun

Forest Service officials, their patience having long evaporated, arrived in force, handcuffing and hauling the occupiers out by the yokes of their flannels, then bulldozing the camp.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 10 July 2026
Why, after all, did the feudal lords of the South, loyal to Church and throne, throw off the royal yoke to join the Revolution?

— James Traub, The Atlantic, 28 June 2026

Definition of yoke

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“Peonage.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peonage. Accessed 29 Jul. 2026.

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Synonyms of peonage

noun

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