slaveish

comparative more slaveish · superlative most slaveish

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of slavish.

   [S]he shall do no manner of slaveish work, that is, she is not to work in the ground at the hoe nor further in the tending of a garden or to help plant.

   end of 17th c., a servant’s indenture; quoted in Philip D. Morgan, “Prelude: Two Infant Slave Societies”, in Slave Counterpoint (Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry), Chapel Hill, N.C.; London: […] [F]or the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, […] by the University of North Carolina Press, 1998, →ISBN, page 14

   5 more examples

   [W]e doe now hold our ſelves bound in mutuall duty to each other, to take the beſt care we can for the future, TO AVOID BOTH THE DANGER of returning into a ſlaveish condition & the chargeable remedie OF ANOTHER WARR.

   1652 May, John Lilburne, quoting an agreement, As You Were or The Lord General Cromwel and the Grand Officers of the Armie Their Remembrancer. […], [Amsterdam?], →OCLC, page 21

   [T]he slaveish sooty race boasts a succession of Codringtons as well as Griggs and Russells, and others of low degree, and that a sober Mr. Perrie and old Col. Williams, as well as young Mr. Warner, are in the list of their paramours etc., etc., yet these are the men that charge me of a lewd life and conversation.

   1710 September 20 (Gregorian calendar), Daniel Parke, “Governor Parke’s reply to the articles of complaint lodged against him”, in Cecil Headlam, editor, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1710-June, 1711. […], London: […] His Majesty’s Stationery Office, published 1924, →OCLC, page 206

   “What illes betide the manne, who ſeekes to reſt / “His hope, upon the fraile, and footleſſe toppe / “Of vaine Ambition’s ladder!—His aſcent / “A ray of guileful fortune circleth rounde, / “To lure the ſlaveish gaze of baſe idolaters!

   [1798?], [Sir Henry Dudley, 1st Baronet]; [Mary, Lady Bate Dudley], “CCXXIV.—Rt. Hon. Wm. P—tt.”, in Passages Selected by Distinguished Personages, on the Great Literary Trial of Vortigern and Rowena; a Comi-Tragedy. […], 4th edition, volume III, London: […] H. Brown, for J. Ridgway, […], →OCLC, “Fifty-Fourth Day’s Trial” section, page 21

   When ing or ish is added to words ending with silent e, the e is almost universally omitted: as, place, placing; lodge, lodging; slave, slaveish;^([sic]) prude, prudeish.^([sic])

   [1819, Lindley Murray, “Of Words in General, and the Rules for Spelling Them”, in English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners: […], Brattleborough, Vt.: […] John Holbrook, →OCLC, Rule X., page 38

   When able, ible, ing, ish, are added to a word ending in e, it is omitted in the spelling: as, blame, blamable, blaming; cure, curable, curing; sense, sensible; place, placing; lodge, lodging; slave, slavish; prude, prudish, &c.: not blameable, blameing, lodgeing, slaveish, &c.: but when the final e is immediately preceded by g and c soft, it is retained in connexion with able and ible: […]

   [1824, James Gilchrist, “Orthography or Right Spelling”, in The Etymologic Interpreter; or, An Explanatory and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. […], London: […] R. Hunter, […], →OCLC, Rule IV., page 254