Meaning & use

enslaved

verb·Academic

Forced into slavery; made to work for someone else as their legal property, without freedom or rights.

See it in a sentence

The historian described how millions of Africans were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic.

The novel follows a family enslaved on a plantation before the Civil War.

A note on using this word

Historians now generally prefer enslaved person over slave because it emphasizes that slavery was done to someone rather than being their identity.

Words with a similar meaning

subjugated

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

freedliberated

Make it your own

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