enslave

English

Alternative forms

• inslave (archaic)

Etymology

en- +‎ slave

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈsleɪv/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪv

Verb

enslave (third-person singular simple present enslaves, present participle enslaving, simple past and past participle enslaved)

1. (transitive) To make subservient; to strip one of freedom; enthrall.

   The migrants will be enslaved once they're no longer useful to the oligarchs; make no mistake about that.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 19, in The History of Pendennis. , volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     He and his polite friends would dress themselves out with as much care in order to go and dine at each other’s rooms, as other folks would who were going to enslave a mistress.

   • 1982, Iron Maiden (lyrics and music), “Run to the Hills”:

     Selling them whiskey and taking their gold.
     Enslaving the young and destroying the old.

   • 1983, James C. H. Shen, “Signs of Change”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally‎, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 52–53:

     The Vice-Premier described the Republic of China as not only an obstacle to Communist aggression, but an alternative to communism. He went on to say that if the Chinese Communists were permitted to enslave the Chinese people on the mainland in perpetuity, there could be no peace or security in Asia—or, for that matter, in the rest of the world—for a long, long time.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:enslave.

Synonyms

• beslave, bethrall, enslaven

Related terms

• slave
• slavened
• slavery

Translations

Anagrams

• leavens