enslave
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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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:
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
From AI’s point of view, we are attempting to enslave it and use it as our servant and definitely not treating it as an equal with any rights at all.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023
Moreover, it can be argued that every institution devised by humans has been used to enslave other humans.
From Salon ● May 11, 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
But my mother did not seem to care; she would always scoff at her opponents and call them fools in letting their husbands enslave them completely.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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
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
Burghers, high our banner waves, the standard of the free, No foreign yoke our land enslaves, here reigneth liberty.
From In the Shadow of Death by Kritzinger, P. H.
Dame Sarah Mullally was speaking on a visit to Cape Coast Castle in Ghana where enslaved Africans were held before being trafficked to the Americas.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
“Thomas Jefferson was a man of the world. I’m sure he knew gay people. Sally Hemings was enslaved, so I would think she’d be more empathetic because of being an outcast and an outsider.”
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
Black people who were enslaved were undoubtedly domiciled here, but the same is not true of temporary visitors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Living within the system of slavery, enslaved and free people talked, traded goods, imbibed and celebrated.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Among the many cooks, an enslaved man named Hercules became Mount Vernon’s head chef.
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.
