middle passage
or Middle Passage
- the part of the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of Africa and the West Indies: the longest part of the journey formerly made by slave ships.
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Origin of middle passage
First recorded in 1780–90
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for middle passage
Historical Examples of middle passage
What a thing of life (and death) to walk the middle-passage; to fly in and out of African bays and creeks!
middle passage
- the middle passage history the journey across the Atlantic Ocean from the W coast of Africa to the Caribbean: the longest part of the journey of the slave ships sailing to the Caribbean or the Americas
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for middle passage
1788, in reference to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper