emancipation
Americannoun
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the act of freeing or state of being freed; liberation
-
informal freedom from inhibition and convention
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of emancipation
First recorded in 1625–35; from Latin ēmancipātiōn-, stem of ēmancipātiō, from ēmancipāt(us) “freed from control” (past participle of ēmancipāre “to free from control”; see emancipate) + -iō -ion
Compare meaning
How does emancipation compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Emancipation is being set free from the control of someone or something. Your emancipation from your parents comes when you turn 18 and are legally considered an adult. The word appears most memorably in the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln's order of 1863 that freed enslaved people in the U.S. Emancipation can describe any kind of liberation: "If you're really chafing under the rigors of practicing for the upcoming game, you and your teammates can go on strike for emancipation from the grueling schedule your coach has decreed."
Vocabulary lists containing emancipation
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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American History I
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (1968)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Strong came to see that Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation would turn Union forces into armies of liberation.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026
Abbe, a committed Republican, probably had endorsed the Emancipation Proclamation.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025
“The projections mirror and amplify that as part of the visual vocabulary, whether that’s Douglass’ newspaper articles or autobiographies, or the text of the Emancipation Proclamation.”
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 16, 2025
The proclamation recognized slavery as an “inhumane practice” and the Emancipation Proclamation as having “ended its evil stain on American democracy.”
From Slate • Feb. 12, 2025
Johns Hopkins was born on a tobacco plantation in Maryland where his father later freed his slaves nearly sixty years before Emancipation.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
