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.
Living in Bondage, the 1992 Igbo language film that pioneered this new wave, was a huge crossover hit and inspired a cascade of production activity across the country.
From The Verge • Aug. 13, 2021
It could have been squashed on the title page of Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer,” or Frederick Douglass’s “My Bondage and My Freedom.”
From Seattle Times • Oct. 3, 2020
She wandered into the Douglasses’ lives in 1856, seeking permission to translate his second autobiography, “My Bondage and My Freedom,” into German.
From New York Times • Nov. 5, 2018
Without freeing his own five slaves, Benjamin Franklin endorsed their views and joined Benezet’s Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, America’s first abolition society, and eventually served as its president.
From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018
The greater the Calamities are of that cruel Bondage, the more reasonable it is, that the Guilty should suffer it rather than the Innocent.
From An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (1725) by Mandeville, Bernard
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.
