slave

plural slaves

1. A person who is held in servitude as the property of another person, and whose labor (and often also whose body and life) is subject to the owner's volition and control.

   Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty into the crew. One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture. Such incidents were not rare.

   1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 9

2. figurativelyA drudge; one who labors or is obliged (e.g. by prior contract) to labor like a slave with limited rights, e.g. an indentured servant.
3. figurativelyAn abject person.

   Art thou the ſlaue that with thy breath haſt kill'd / Mine innocent child?

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

   Synonyms: wretch

4. figurativelyOne who has no power of resistance to something, one who surrenders to or is under the domination of something.

   a slave to passion, to strong drink, or to ambition

   1 more example

   Slave to the rhythm! / Keep it up, keep it up! / Never stop! Never stop!

   1985, “Slave to the Rhythm”, in Slave to the Rhythm, performed by Grace Jones

   Synonyms: thrall

5. BDSMA submissive partner in a BDSM relationship who consensually submits to, sexually or personally, serving one or more masters or mistresses.

   In the clip the black female “slave” dons a chain around her neck for which her white mistress possesses the key. The black woman sub is further disciplined by the power of speech—the force of silence.

   [2016, Ariane Cruz, The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 39

6. A sex slave, a person who is forced against their will to perform, for another person or group, sexual acts on a regular or continuing basis.
7. artsA device (such as a secondary flash or hard drive) that is subject to the control of another (a master).

   If you administer your own reverse DNS zones, remember to include them in your slave configuration.

   2011, Roderick W. Smith, LPIC-2 Linux Professional Institute Certification Study Guide, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN

   Synonyms: secondary, worker · Antonyms: master, primary

present singular third person slaves · participle present slaving · participle past slaved · past slaved

1. To work as a slaver, to enslave people.

   MASSINISSA: Wilt thou be slaved? SOPHONISBA: No, free

   1606, John Marston, The Wonder of Women

   4 more examples

   The truth is from the Zambesi to Lake Nyasa on the north and east banks of the river, there is nothing but slaving — Africans selling each other . . .

   1908, James Wells, Stewart of Lovedale: The Life of James Stewart, D.D., M.D., Hon. F.R.G.S., page 88

   Despite these examples, the majority of enslaved Africans were not able to rely on rulers for help against slaving. Africans living in chiefdoms and villages ruled by allied African authorities were, however, able to use the legal system (Tribunal of Mukanos) in place in the regions under formal Portuguese control […]

   2011, David Eltis, Keith Bradley, Paul Cartledge, The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 3, AD 1420-AD 1804, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 128

   With ready access to firearms through trade, the slaving Africans held a distinct upper-hand over the groups they preyed upon, which were often politically and socially weakened or destroyed by the trade.

   2016, Thomas Arcaro, Rosemary Haskell, Chinedu Eke, Robert Anderson, Stephen Braye, Ann Cahill, Brian Digre, Anne Bolin, Mathew Gendle, Duane McClearn, Jeffrey Pugh, Laura Roselle, Jean Schwind, Kerstin Sorensen, Anthony Weston, Understanding the Global Experience: Becoming a Responsible World Citizen, Routledge, →ISBN

   Significant impacts resulted from slaving; there is evidence of how communities dealt with the threat and benefits of slaving. Africans provided most of the slaves to European slavers. Most slaves were created either to settle debts or raise funds, through warfare, or as punishment for a real or perceived crime.

   2016, Alistair Paterson, A Millennium of Cultural Contact, Routledge, →ISBN, page 117

2. intransitiveTo work hard.

   I was slaving all day over a hot stove.

3. transitiveTo place a device under the control of another.

   to slave a hard disk

   1 more example

   Slaving one digital audio device to another unit using timecode alone results in time-based synchronisation[…]

   2005, Simon Millward, Fast Guide to Cubase SX, page 403

1. alternativeAlternative form of Slavey.
2. Synonym of Sclavia.

   Synonyms: Sclavia

plural Slaves

1. alternativeAlternative form of Slavey.
2. obsoleteObsolete form of Slav.

   Slaves or Slavì of Pomerania, with their confederates defeated near Lunden in Scania, […]

   1766, An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time, volume XLIV, index

   3 more examples

   Moldavia and Wallachia, inhabited by Slaves nominally belonging to the Turkish empire, are in the actual military occupation of Russia. Servia, inhabited by the Slavic Serbs, is avowedly disloyal to the Porte, […]

   1850 December, “Russian Ambition”, in The American Whig Review, page 622

   Europe is inhabited on the east and north-east, from the Frozen Ocean to the Adriatic, by two extensive races named the Finns and the Slaves.

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 487

   It extended then far into Hungary, and the ancient limits of the land of these so-called Pannonic Slaves are the same which at present mark the extent of the language. […] A considerable number of Slaves in the Russian province of Silesia are said to speak the same languages slightly modified.

   1853, Maximilian Schele De Vere, Outlines of Comparative Philology, page 350