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

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

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

But American abolitionists commenced their crusade against slavery, by charging those who sustained it, and who alone, held the power to manumit, with crimes of the blackest dye.

From Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject by E. N. Elliott

In the light of our present-day discussion it is interesting also to find that Marcus Aurelius granted them the right to manumit slaves and receive legacies—that is, he made them juridical persons.

From The Common People of Ancient Rome Studies of Roman Life and Literature by Frank Frost Abbott

Ma is compounded with many words which express action done by the hand; as, manufacture, manumit.

From Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. by William Stevens Balch

I beg, for the sake of God, that you will manumit this audacious fellow as a propitiation at the tomb of your forefathers, lest he also involve me in calamity.

From The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan, Volume 2 by James Ross

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

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

A slave woman and her children were manumitted by her husband, who had probably bought them to set them free.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2017

The government at Buenos Aires sent him a valuable addition in a corps of manumitted negro slaves, but his nucleus was the regiments which he himself had drilled at Buenos Aires.

From The South American Republics Part I of II by Thomas C. Dawson

“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

The cruel practice of manumitting aged and helpless slaves became so general in this plantation, that the General Assembly passed a law regulating it, in February, 1728.

From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

The trial and equity courts contain records of litigation about slaves; of advice of chancellors to trustees seeking to make or change investment; of wills manumitting slaves; and a thousand other relevant matters.

From The Brothers' War by John Calvin Reed

The next year, 1769, a mercenary spirit inspired and secured the passage of another Act levying a tax upon imported slaves, and requiring persons manumitting slaves to give better securities.

From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

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