Meaning & use
manumission
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable or uncountableformal
The act by which an owner formally released an enslaved person from slavery.
Grammar: Uncountable for the practice (manumission was rare), countable for an instance (several manumissions were recorded).
Patterns
- the manumission of someone
- manumission by someone
The will provided for the manumission of three people he had enslaved.
Manumission usually required a legal document and a witness.
Records of manumission in the county show many freed families.
noununcountableliteraryrare
The release or freeing of someone from a state of bondage or control, used in historical or literary writing.
Grammar: A wider, rarer use: manumission from debt.
Patterns
- manumission from something
Historians describe the manumission of serfs in medieval Europe.
The poem celebrates manumission from every kind of chain.
He longed for manumission from his heavy debts.
Word forms
| plural | manumissions |
|---|
Common combinations
- deed of manumission
- The deed of manumission was filed with the county court.
- grant manumission
- Some owners granted manumission in their wills.
- purchase manumission
- She saved for years to purchase her own manumission.
- manumission papers
- His manumission papers are kept in the state archive.
- law of manumission
- The law of manumission differed from colony to colony.
Synonyms and how they differ
- emancipation
- Emancipation often means freeing a whole group by law, whereas manumission is a single owner's act of freeing an individual.
- liberation
- Liberation is a broad word for setting free, including from war or oppression, and is not tied to private legal acts.
- release
- Release is plain and general, while manumission is a technical term in the history of slavery.
- enfranchisement
- Enfranchisement can mean freeing from slavery but is now mainly used for giving the right to vote.
Opposites
Word family
- manumit verb
- to free an enslaved person formally
- manumitted adjective
- having been freed from slavery by an owner
- manumitter noun
- someone who frees an enslaved person
Commonly confused: manumission or emancipation? manumission or admission?
manumission vs emancipation
Emancipation usually refers to freedom granted across a society, as in the Emancipation Proclamation. Manumission is a private act by an individual owner.
manumission vs admission
Admission means permission to enter or an acknowledgement of something. It shares the ending -mission but has no connection with freeing people.
Practice
Which situation best describes manumission?
Choose one answer.
Manumission is an owner formally freeing an individual. A nationwide end to slavery is emancipation or abolition, which is the tempting wrong answer.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “manumission”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.