bondage
Americannoun
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slavery or involuntary servitude; serfdom.
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the state of being bound by or subjected to some external power or control.
- Synonyms:
- imprisonment, confinement, captivity, thralldom
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the state or practice of being physically restrained, as by being tied up, chained, or put in handcuffs, for sexual gratification.
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Early English Law. personal subjection to the control of a superior; villeinage.
noun
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slavery or serfdom; servitude
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Also called: villeinage. (in medieval Europe) the condition and status of unfree peasants who provided labour and other services for their lord in return for holdings of land
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a sexual practice in which one partner is physically bound
Synonym Usage
See slavery.
Etymology
Origin of bondage
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Anglo-Latin bondagium. See bond 2, -age
Explanation
Bondage is the state of being bound, like an enslaved person. If you're in handcuffs, you're in bondage. The word bondage has meant "condition of a serf or slave" since the 1300s, the same time the word bond came along to mean "anything that binds." Bondage originated around the time Dante was writing The Inferno, in which Satan flaps his wings to try and break free of bondage, as he's stuck in ice up to his chest.
Vocabulary lists containing bondage
Michelle Obama's Speech at the 2016 DNC
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Mahatma Gandhi's "Quit India" Speech
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The Tempest
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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.
In one fell swoop, Congress used its guarantee clause authority to establish multiracial democracy where human bondage had previously held sway, enfranchising huge numbers of formerly enslaved Black Americans and remaking Southern society.
From Slate • Jun. 3, 2026
“This festival is intended to lift up our ancestors that came to this country in bondage, terrorized, brutalized,” Ludlow said outside City Hall on Wednesday.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2026
His 1845 autobiography, a blistering tale of bondage in Maryland and a daring flight to freedom, remains one of history’s fiercest attacks on slavery.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 24, 2025
CAL also found evidence of debt bondage, a form of forced labor that involves “recruitment fees,” often paid with a loan, with workers essentially indentured until their debts are settled.
From Salon • Apr. 2, 2024
Besides the seventeen refugees from Washington’s home, more than twenty enslaved people from Thomas Jefferson’s properties were also in Yorktown, along with thousands of others who had escaped bondage.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
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.
