as in slavery
the state of being an enslaved person
the Fugitive Slave Act had the effect of returning enslaved people who had made it to freedom in the North to a brutal life of servitude in the South
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Recent Examples of servitude
The word robot comes from the Czech word ‘robota’ which meant involuntary servitude, something very close to slavery, says Novakova.
—
Bruce Dorminey, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
But perhaps the consequence was that some deeper servitude had been inflicted elsewhere.
—Rachel Cusk, New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2025
Its clients happen to be from a more progressive section of the galaxy where thinking machines have the same rights as any human; to Murderbot, however, that reality doesn’t look much different from servitude.
—Emma Stefansky, The Atlantic, 5 July 2025
There are no piano players, there is no music without the technicians who work in a quiet servitude of maintaining these instruments.
—Etan Vlessing, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for servitude
Bruce Dorminey, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
But perhaps the consequence was that some deeper servitude had been inflicted elsewhere.
—Rachel Cusk, New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2025
Its clients happen to be from a more progressive section of the galaxy where thinking machines have the same rights as any human; to Murderbot, however, that reality doesn’t look much different from servitude.
—Emma Stefansky, The Atlantic, 5 July 2025
There are no piano players, there is no music without the technicians who work in a quiet servitude of maintaining these instruments.
—Etan Vlessing, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for servitude
Recent Examples of Synonyms for servitude
slavery
Noun
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Once freed from slavery, Washington toiled in coal mines, worked as a janitor in exchange for formal education and became a great American orator and leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.—
Jennifer Smith Richards,
ProPublica,
22 Oct. 2025
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How the stakeholders juggled those diametrically opposed ideas—liberty and self-governance but also slavery and their horrific treatment of the Native American population—is the part of the human experience that Burns is most interested in exploring.—
Carlo Versano,
MSNBC Newsweek,
22 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Servitude.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/servitude. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
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