as in serfdom
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Recent Examples of peonage
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
Further, this much control over the autonomy of an athlete’s rights to their own NIL rights combined with a financial obligation could also trigger scrutiny under the 13th Amendment, which, in addition to abolishing slavery, placed prohibitions on peonage (i.e., working against your will).
—Joe Sabin, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 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
Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024
Further, this much control over the autonomy of an athlete’s rights to their own NIL rights combined with a financial obligation could also trigger scrutiny under the 13th Amendment, which, in addition to abolishing slavery, placed prohibitions on peonage (i.e., working against your will).
—Joe Sabin, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 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
-
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
-
For them, freedom meant ending serfdom too.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
25 Sep. 2025
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
Noun
-
Last year, in April, the Post reported that the National Parks Service had edited dozens of web pages to soften or remove references to slavery, racial division, civil rights, the Jim Crow era, and other parts of American history.—
Harrison Jacobs,
ARTnews.com,
5 June 2026
-
Zeinab Ahmad, 31, applied for bail in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on two slavery charges.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
4 June 2026
Noun
-
Along with Jim Crow laws that criminalized Blackness, the loophole allowed for the legal re-enslavement of Black Americans to financially benefit the state.—
Julia Bowling,
The Conversation,
29 May 2026
-
There are acid critiques of settler colonialism alongside tributes to the majesty of the American landscape, sober revisitations of enslavement alongside hopeful pleas for liberation, bitter denouncements of intervention in wars abroad alongside quaint homages to homespun Americanness.—
Alex Greenberger,
ARTnews.com,
28 May 2026
Noun
-
Most of this sprawling show hinges on nearly 100 outfits showcased on mannequins arranged on a mock runway, the looks assembled by theme, from bondage to Baroque.—
Miles Socha,
Footwear News,
4 June 2026
-
What the restaurant represents to its supporters (and those hesitant but curious) is a shift in public interest in, and acceptance of bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism (BDSM).—
Victoria M. Walker,
Bon Appetit Magazine,
15 May 2026
Noun
-
There's no steering yoke or room for a driver because a driver or staff member isn't needed for operation.—
Charles Singh,
USA Today,
11 May 2026
-
No one’s going to be stuck in a hand-over-hand situation like in a Tesla, with its horrid implementation of a yoke.—
Joel Feder,
The Drive,
2 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Peonage.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peonage. Accessed 8 Jun. 2026.
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