enslave
Americanverb (used with object)
-
enslaves,
present (3rd person singular)
-
enslaved,
past participle, past
-
enslaving
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
enslavesimple
-
enslavessimple
-
have enslavedperfect
-
has enslavedperfect
-
am enslavingprogressive
-
are enslavingprogressive
-
is enslavingprogressive
-
have been enslavingperfect progressive
-
has been enslavingperfect progressive
Past
-
enslavedsimple
-
had enslavedperfect
-
was enslavingprogressive
-
were enslavingprogressive
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Across So Many Seas
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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:
“Although people aren’t necessarily enslaved by it, people enslave themselves to it because they’re told how fantastic it is to help manifest these illusions for a corporate sponsor.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026
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
Most ants can be highly territorial and even go to war or enslave other ants.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 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
From these images, Jemisin spun out a four-hundred-page story about an empire that enslaves its deities.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 20, 2020
Tyranny is of three kinds, viz., that which enslaves the person, that which seizes the property, and that which prescribes and dictates to the mind.
From Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe
Two enslaved women, Amica and Detfri, pressed their feet into the pliant clay and wrote their names.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
He enslaved more than 100 people at Mount Vernon, and historians continue to grapple with the contradiction between the nation’s founding ideals and the human bondage practiced by its first president, among his strong mythology.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
The law was originally meant to grant citizenship to American-born, formerly enslaved people following the American Civil War.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 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
West Ford, formerly enslaved by one of George Washington’s brothers, once reported that he took care of Billy in his old age.
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
“You’ll learn, young brotha. You’ll learn. The Europeans succeeded in denigrating and enslaving peoples of African descent, but there’s royal blood flowing through your veins, you hear me?”
From "Dear Martin" by Nic Stone
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.
