manumit

American  

[man-yuh-mit] / ˌmæn jəˈmɪt /

verb (used with object)

manumitted, manumitting

1. to release from slavery or servitude.

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manumit British  

/ ˌmænjʊˈmɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to free from slavery, servitude, etc; emancipate

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Other Word Forms

• manumitter
  noun
• unmanumitted
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of manumit

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin manūmittere, earlier manū ēmittere to send away from (one's) hand, i.e., to set free. See manus, emit

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Explanation

To manumit is to set free, or to release a slave from slavery. During slavery in the United States, it was rare for a slave owner to manumit his slaves. Manumit comes from a Latin word meaning “set forth from the hand,” which happens when a slave owner frees a slave. The terrible history of slavery includes stories of owners who might manumit a slave as a reward for serving in their stead in the Revolutionary War, or simply to appear benevolent.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

manumit manumitted manumitting

If they were faithful and hardworking, the master would set them free, manumit them, when he died.

From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry

The Apostle does not reprove me, nor require me to manumit Onesimus, but tells me that I now receive him "forever," and he teaches me how to treat him.

From The Sable Cloud A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) by Nehemiah Adams

In Louisiana, however, it being illegal to manumit a slave, those whom the abolitionists would set free, would not be considered free in the eye of the law.

From Discussion on American Slavery by Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge

I have entreated him, for the sake of our unborn child, to manumit me, and he has promised to do it.

From A Romance of the Republic by Lydia Maria Francis Child

Under Marcus Aurelius the colleges were recognized as juristic persons, with power to manumit slaves and receive legacies.

From A History of Rome to 565 A. D. by Arthur Edward Romilly Boak

A comparable process took place in Cuba after the Spanish-American War, when American sugar companies acquired 60% of rural properties across Cuba, reducing independent farmers—largely manumitted slaves and their descendants—to the level of low-wage labor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

Enslaved people who had been manumitted and allied fighters in times of conflict were likely to be granted citizenship.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Instead he’s manumitted by a combo platter of teen love and Paul Williams ballads.

From Salon ● May 29, 2017

But Tubman had plotted with Kessiah’s husband, who had been manumitted, to free his family.

From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2017

We have made all freed men in general become citizens of Rome, regarding neither the age of the manumitted, nor the manumittor, nor the ancient forms of manumission.

From Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford December Term, 1856. by Benjamin C. Howard

“The evidence is pretty strong that Johns Hopkins was an abolitionist,” Crenson said, and the possibility exists that he owned enslaved people for the possibility of manumitting them.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 5, 2021

I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery.

From A Social History of the American Negro Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Griffith Brawley

Nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery.

From American Negro Slavery A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various

There is in existence a document manumitting his slave, which, I am happy to say, is the only existing evidence that any ancestor of mine ever owned one.

From Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 by George Frisbie Hoar

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