Library / English Dictionary

SLAVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who is owned by someone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("slave" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "slave"):

bondman; bondsman (a male slave)

bondmaid; bondswoman; bondwoman (a female slave)

bond servant (someone bound to labor without wages)

creature; puppet; tool (a person who is controlled by others and is used to perform unpleasant or dishonest tasks for someone else)

galley slave (a slave condemned to row in a galley)

Instance hyponyms:

Dred Scott; Scott (United States slave who sued for liberty after living in a non-slave state; caused the Supreme Court to declare the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (1795?-1858))

Nat Turner; Turner (United States slave and insurrectionist who in 1831 led a rebellion of slaves in Virginia; he was captured and executed (1800-1831))

Denmark Vesey; Vesey (United States freed slave and insurrectionist in South Carolina who was involved in planning an uprising of slaves and was hanged (1767-1822))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who works as hard as a slave

Synonyms:

hard worker; slave; striver

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("slave" is a kind of...):

worker (a person who works at a specific occupation)

Derivation:

slave (work very hard, like a slave)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Someone entirely dominated by some influence or person

Example:

his mother was his abject slave

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("slave" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Work very hard, like a slave

Synonyms:

break one's back; buckle down; knuckle down; slave

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "slave" is one way to...):

do work; work (be employed)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

slave (someone who works as hard as a slave)

slavery (work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Each of those nicks is for a slave murderer—a good row of them—what?

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"What have you done anyway that a two-legged other animal should come along, break you to harness, curb all your natural proclivities, and make slave- beasts out of you?"

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

In addition to the resistance showed by traditional communities, such as indigenous people and descendents of slaves; farm workers— small land owners included—still occupy prohibited territories.

(Brazilian savanna unprotected, study finds, Agência Brasil)

I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He had left his pipe below, and being a slave to tobacco, had meant that I should fetch it; but as soon as I was near enough to speak and not to be overheard, I broke immediately, Doctor, let me speak.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)