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:
He’s an amoral tycoon who would enslave an entire country to make a buck.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 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
Ignorance of the ABCs, Frederick Douglass would write after gaining his freedom, was part of “the white man’s power to enslave the black man.”
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
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
And he argues, of course, this point with regard to the African-American neighbors he enslaves, but he also applies that to the North.
From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2020
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
On some hoar upland, hoar with clustered thorns, Hard by a river's wind-blown lisp of waves, Sit with young white-skinned Spring, whose dewy morns Laugh in his pouting cheeks which Health enslaves.
From Blooms of the Berry by Madison J. Cawein
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
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
Lithwick: Separated from their children, not yet full citizens, formerly enslaved parents faced unimaginable odds to reunite their families.
From Slate ● 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
The Constitution also included a requirement that the federal government had to assist in the return of any escaped enslaved people, or fugitives.
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
Growing up watching those movies and reading comics and science fiction, the idea of robot overlords enslaving humanity was always close at hand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 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.
