indentured servant

[in-den-cherd sur-vuhnt]

noun

1. a person who agrees to work for another without pay, with or without a contract, in order to repay a debt or in exchange for food and shelter.

   By financing immigrants’ passage to this country, the farmer receives steady labor from the indentured servants obliged to pay off their large debts.

indentured servant

1. A person under contract to work for another person for a definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country. During the seventeenth century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England as indentured servants.

Word History and Origins

Origin of indentured servant¹

First recorded in 1665–75