an overseer of enslaved laborers and enforcer of hierarchy and discipline in the institution of chattel slavery.
a hard taskmaster.
His boss was a slave driver.
(esp formerly) a person forcing slaves to work
an employer who demands excessively hard work from his employees
An Americanism dating back to 1800–10
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The rebels were led by Charles Deslondes, a mixed-race slave who laboured as a slave driver on Andry’s plantation.
From The Guardian ● May 6, 2019
Perhaps as many five hundred joined the rebellion, led by Charles Deslondes, a mixed-race slave driver on a sugar plantation owned by Manuel Andry.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 30, 2014
Stern, on the other hand, is "a slave driver."
From Time Magazine Archive
But in Chiang Kai-shek's China there was no slave driver with a lash.
From Time Magazine Archive
I feel like a slave driver when I make them study on days that were made for the open.
From Amanda — a Daughter of the Mennonites by Myers, Anna Balmer
It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 19, 2015
Her staff sometimes found her abrupt, and she could be a slave-driver; there is a story that one gardener resigned after developing frostbite.
From Slate ● Mar. 18, 2015
Report relates that the slave-driver General and his rebel army fortified Dorchester Heights, across the harbor from Boston, in but one March night; and once thus positioned, they commenced shelling the town.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
She had confidence in Mr. Lincoln, but denounced Gen. Banks, who, she said, was a hero in one place and a slave-driver in another.
From History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II by Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
For fear that some may think that I have misrepresented a slave-driver, I will here give an extract from a paper published in a slaveholding State, Tennessee, called the "Millennial Trumpeter."
From The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave by Brown, William Wells
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
