as in peonage
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Recent Examples of serfdom
The peasants’ goal was to overturn serfdom and create a fairer society grounded on the Christian Bible.
—
Michael Bruening, The Conversation, 25 Feb. 2025
That book, Caliban and the Witch, traces the emergence of witch hunts throughout medieval Western Europe amid the transition from serfdom to proto-capitalism.
—Hazlitt, 4 Sep. 2024
As the Big Three continue to drive down the road to serfdom, car production will continue in the United States.
—The Editors, National Review, 18 Sep. 2023
Russian officers still treated their peasant soldiers as little better than serfs (and serfdom would not be abolished in Russia for another 50 years).
—Antony Beevor, Foreign Affairs, 29 Dec. 2022
See All Example Sentences for serfdom
Michael Bruening, The Conversation, 25 Feb. 2025
That book, Caliban and the Witch, traces the emergence of witch hunts throughout medieval Western Europe amid the transition from serfdom to proto-capitalism.
—Hazlitt, 4 Sep. 2024
As the Big Three continue to drive down the road to serfdom, car production will continue in the United States.
—The Editors, National Review, 18 Sep. 2023
Russian officers still treated their peasant soldiers as little better than serfs (and serfdom would not be abolished in Russia for another 50 years).
—Antony Beevor, Foreign Affairs, 29 Dec. 2022
See All Example Sentences for serfdom
Recent Examples of Synonyms for serfdom
Noun
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Roughly 12% were of African descent — newly unshackled, technically free and already being legally recaptured under other names: peonage, vagrancy laws, convict leasing.—
Jack Hill,
Baltimore Sun,
17 May 2025
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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
Noun
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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
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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
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When the South seceded from the United States in order to maintain slavery as a legal practice, Clemens left behind Hannibal and the steamships.—
Trevor Hughes,
USA Today,
31 May 2026
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Those marching orders left opponents and free speech advocates in disbelief, wondering how park employees were supposed to put a sunny spin on monuments acknowledging slavery, Jim Crow laws and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.—
Jack Dolan,
Los Angeles Times,
29 May 2026
Noun
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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
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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
-
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
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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
Noun
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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
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Wheatley was born in West Africa before being kidnapped and enslaved, and wrote timeless, staggering lyrics of elegy and Biblical allusion while enduring the bondage of slavery.—
Time,
Time,
12 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Serfdom.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/serfdom. Accessed 6 Jun. 2026.
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