helotry

[hel-uh-tree, hee-luh-]

noun

1. serfdom; slavery.

2. helots collectively.

helotry

/ ˈhiː-, ˈhɛlətrɪ /

noun

1. serfdom or slavery

2. serfs or slaves as a class

Word History and Origins

Origin of helotry¹

First recorded in 1820–30; Helot ( def. ) + -ry

Example Sentences

Like Byron, and many another man of that day, he had a fascinated admiration for this prodigious master of legions; and moreover, Napoleon's ruin meant the establishment of the Holy Alliance, and, as one of many corollaries, the perpetuation of helotry in Ireland.

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Beautiful are the daughters of Israel with a striking Old Testament beauty, marvellously imperious considering the lengthened apprenticeship of helotry through which they have served; but na�vet� is not the quality one would look for in their countenances.

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He even managed to sound properly alarmed about the Americans by warning that Europe faced the danger of falling under American "industrial helotry"- unless the British and French got together.

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It could hardly be said that the relations were entirely harmonious between the military-minded rector, who held to the righteousness of helotry and the value of ignorance in the class beneath him, and the young curate burning with zeal and oppressed with the desire to put all the crooked things of life straight.

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In Hungary the Magyars, thanks to their central position, their superior political sense, and their possession of a powerful aristocracy, succeeded in concentrating all government and administration in their own hands and reducing the other races of the country, who have always formed a majority of the population, to a state of veritable political helotry.

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Related Words

• bondage 
• captivity 
• enslavement 
• serfdom 
• servitude 
• subjugation