peonage

noun

Definition of peonagenext
as in serfdom

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Example Sentences

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
  1. serfdom
  2. servitude
  3. slavery
  4. enslavement
  5. bondage
  6. yoke
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
  • Countless stories of Zeke’s kindness, bravery and commitment to a life of servitude took up the nearly eight-hour hearing.
    — Miami Herald, Miami Herald, 24 July 2026
  • 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
Definition of servitude
Noun
  • And in the late 1800s, after slavery’s end in the British islands, sugar was joined by another cash crop for which a market was fast emerging up north.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Aug. 2026
  • It was widely regarded as the beginning of African slavery in the United States.
    — USA Today, USA Today, 4 Aug. 2026
Definition of slavery
Noun
  • While Homer followed warriors sailing home from Troy, the playwright Euripides — writing some three centuries later — turned to the city’s ruins and its women, forced into exile and enslavement.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 9 Aug. 2026
  • Barbados and other Caribbean nations have pushed reparatory justice beyond a historical argument about enslavement and toward a broader debate over development, debt, ownership and the continuing economic consequences of colonial extraction.
    — Richard Fowler, Forbes.com, 29 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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Cite this Entry

“Peonage.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peonage. Accessed 12 Aug. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on peonage

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about peonage

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