indentured servant

[ in-den-cherd sur-vuhnt ]

noun

1. a person who agrees to work for another without pay, with or without a contract, in order to repay a debt or in exchange for food and shelter:

   By financing immigrants’ passage to this country, the farmer receives steady labor from the indentured servants obliged to pay off their large debts.

indentured servant

1. A person under contract to work for another person for a definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country. During the seventeenth century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England as indentured servants.

Word History and Origins

Origin of indentured servant¹

First recorded in 1665–75

Example Sentences

This state constitution outlined that existing indentured servants would remain in their contracts, and children born to them would be freed only at certain ages — women at 18, men at 21.

From Washington Post

Hughson had in his service an indentured servant,—a girl of sixteen years,—named Mary Burton.

From Project Gutenberg

One was instigated by a perjurer and a heretic, the other by an indentured servant, in all probability from a convict ship.

From Project Gutenberg

It provided that no indentured servant should be sold into another government without the approval of at least one justice.

From Project Gutenberg

The planter navigated the boat himself unless he could provide a slave or an indentured servant.

From Project Gutenberg

The only books were two Bibles; the list mentions a single indentured servant.

From Project Gutenberg