slave driver
noun
an overseer of enslaved laborers and enforcer of hierarchy and discipline in the institution of chattel slavery.
Jump To:
-
slave driver
-
slave-driver
slave-drivernoun(esp formerly) a person forcing slaves to work
slave driver
Americannoun
-
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.
slave-driver
British
noun
-
(esp formerly) a person forcing slaves to work
-
an employer who demands excessively hard work from his employees
Etymology
Origin of slave driver
An Americanism dating back to 1800–10
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
But in Chiang Kai-shek's China there was no slave driver with a lash.
From Time Magazine Archive
Stern, on the other hand, is "a slave driver."
From Time Magazine Archive
Mr. Skinner was already at his desk, for he was a slave driver who drove himself fully as hard as he did those under him.
From Cappy Ricks Or, the Subjugation of Matt Peasley by Peter B. (Peter Bernard) Kyne
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
At home in his own island, he labours himself like a slave, and makes his people labour like a slave-driver.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
I feel like a slave-driver, pushing these poor chaps around in this heat.
From Left Guard Gilbert by Edward C. Caswell
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.
