enslave
Americanverb (used with object)
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enslaves,
present (3rd person singular)
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enslaved,
past participle, past
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enslaving
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
enslavesimple
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enslavessimple
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have enslavedperfect
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has enslavedperfect
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am enslavingprogressive
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are enslavingprogressive
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is enslavingprogressive
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have been enslavingperfect progressive
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has been enslavingperfect progressive
Past
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enslavedsimple
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had enslavedperfect
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was enslavingprogressive
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were enslavingprogressive
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had been enslavingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enslave
Explanation
To enslave someone is to force that person to work for no pay, to obey commands, and to lose his or her freedom. The ancient Greeks were known to enslave groups of people they defeated in military battles. It's less common today for one group of people to enslave another, but unfortunately it does still happen. You might also encounter enslave being used in a figurative way, to describe something that takes over a person's freedom to make choices in some way: "Being hooked on cigarettes just enslaves her — she tries to quit, but she can't." Enslave comes from the "make into" prefix, en-, and slave, "person who is the property of another."
Vocabulary lists containing enslave
Lost Boy, Lost Girl
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Across So Many Seas
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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.
See Examples For:
“Proper is a word forged by men who would seek to enslave us with it,” Lucretia counsels Ilithyia.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025
Superfly is constructing a device to turn all animals into mutants and enslave the human race, and the heroes enter into a color explosion epic battle to stop him.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
They will be like, “OK, leave him alone. Don’t enslave him. He understands us.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023
But last week Hinton quit Google so he could speak freely about his fears that A.I. systems would soon become smarter than us and gain the power to enslave or kill us.
From Slate ● May 9, 2023
We expect great things from men who have made such a noble stand against the designs of their fellow-men to enslave them.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Later, it did duty as a lower level of Nibelheim, where Alberich enslaves his fellow Nibelungs as the first step in his quest for world domination.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 14, 2023
Speaking to supporters at the end of his Socialist Party's three-day congress in Valencia, Mr Sanchez said that the practice "enslaves" women.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2021
But those defense mechanisms, when fortified by narcissism, become an emotional-cognitive web that ensnares and enslaves us, and blinds us to the reality of who we are and what the world around us is like.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2020
Were we talking about a Terminator scenario, were a Skynettian matrix of superintelligent machines gains consciousness and either destroys or enslaves humanity in order to further its particular goals?
From Slate ● Feb. 28, 2017
Then at last he loathes the power that enslaves and brings forth evil.
From Life of Wagner Biographies of Musicians by Louis Nohl
She travelled to Cape Coast Castle, one of the many coastal fortresses that had been run by the British, and where enslaved people were held before enduring the brutal "Middle Passage" to the Americas.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
The insect’s first trips west came soon after, as the transatlantic slave trade brought ships packed with enslaved Africans to the New World.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
The irony is that Sally was also Martha’s half-sister — the product of John Wayles’ relations with an enslaved woman — making her biological kin to the Monticello Association members, too.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
This is a fictional story, provoked by historical estimates that, from 1829 to 1865, between 4,000 and 10,000 enslaved persons sought freedom in Mexico.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
More than twenty-five enslaved people labored in his home, fields, and mills in upstate New York.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
But it was extremely hypocritical of the U.S. to condemn the Barbary states for enslaving a few hundred Americans given, you know, the extensive enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Africans on American soil.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
France abolished enslaving humans more than 170 years ago, and in 2001 recognised slavery and the slave trade as "crimes against humanity".
From Barron's ● May 28, 2026
One of them, an intricately carved throne, expresses the Kingdom of Dahomey’s expansionist practice of enslaving captured enemies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2024
And, in its most extreme version, this argument morphs into explicit anxieties about AIs enslaving or destroying the human race.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 12, 2023
“But with binding magic, you’re basically enslaving a spirit. Like the corpuscules? Someone with binding magic captured a spirit and then shadowshaped it into Ol’ Vernon’s corpse and sent it to do their bidding.
From "Shadowshaper" by Daniel José Older
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.
