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slave driver

See more synonyms for slave driver on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. an overseer of slaves.
  2. a hard taskmaster: His boss was a slave driver.
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Origin of slave driver

An Americanism dating back to 1800–10
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for slave-driver

disciplinarian, oppressor, tyrant

Examples from the Web for slave-driver

Historical Examples of slave-driver

  • An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.

    The Devil's Dictionary

    Ambrose Bierce

  • It was the slave-driver speaking, the man who governed with a whip.

    Captain Blood

    Rafael Sabatini

  • "She is wus than a slave-driver," the man said to Harold one day.

    Gretchen

    Mary J. Holmes

  • In fact, they're more often like the lash of the slave-driver than decent business.

  • Out to spread the word about what a slave-driver the new director was.

    Sense of Obligation

    Henry Maxwell Dempsey (AKA Harry Harrison)

British Dictionary definitions for slave-driver

slave-driver

noun
  1. (esp formerly) a person forcing slaves to work
  2. an employer who demands excessively hard work from his employees
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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