SLAVE
What does "SLAVE" mean?
A person legally owned by another and forced to work without freedom or pay.
Meanings
- A person held in servitude as the property of another, with no personal freedom. The plantation was worked by enslaved people held against their will.
- A person entirely controlled by something, such as a habit or passion. He was a slave to his ambition. figurative
- To work excessively hard, as if compelled. She slaved over the report until midnight. informal
Did you know?
- The word 'slave' is the same word as 'Slav': so many Slavic people were captured and sold in early medieval Europe that their ethnic name became the term for the bound condition itself.
Word origin
From Medieval Latin 'sclavus', from 'Sclavus' (Slav), because many enslaved people in early medieval Europe were Slavic peoples; the ethnic name became the word for the bound condition.
Remember it
SLAVE and 'Slav' share their first four letters because they share one grim history - the people's name became the word for their chains.
A little poem
A people's name was hammered into a yoke
and worn so long the world forgot the face-
history is the chain that language spoke.
tercet
What it teaches
Watch how a word for a people becomes a word for a wound; language remembers what power did.
Quick facts
What does SLAVE mean?
A person legally owned by another and forced to work without freedom or pay.
Is SLAVE a valid word?
Yes — SLAVE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SLAVE?
SLAVE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SLAVE come from?
From Medieval Latin 'sclavus', from 'Sclavus' (Slav), because many enslaved people in early medieval Europe were Slavic peoples; the ethnic name became the word for the bound condition.
What can SLAVE teach us?
Watch how a word for a people becomes a word for a wound; language remembers what power did.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.