subjugate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
subjugates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
subjugated,
past participle, past
-
subjugating
present participle
verb
-
to bring into subjection
-
to make subservient or submissive
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
subjugationnoun
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subjugatornoun
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nonsubjugableadjective
-
self-subjugatingadjective
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subjugableadjective
-
unsubjugatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
subjugatesimple
-
subjugatessimple
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have subjugatedperfect
-
has subjugatedperfect
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am subjugatingprogressive
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are subjugatingprogressive
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is subjugatingprogressive
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have been subjugatingperfect progressive
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has been subjugatingperfect progressive
Past
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subjugatedsimple
-
had subjugatedperfect
-
was subjugatingprogressive
-
were subjugatingprogressive
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had been subjugatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of subjugate
1400–50; late Middle English < Late Latin subjugātus, past participle of subjugāre to subjugate, equivalent to sub- sub- + jug ( um ) yoke 1 + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
If you say you won't be kept down by the man, you are saying that you won't let the man subjugate you. To subjugate is to repress someone, or to make them subservient to you. In subjugate you see the word subject. In this word, it's not talking about the subject of a sentence, rather it's talking about the kind of subjects that Kings have serving them. Subjugate is to reduce someone's status to that of a subject. It's a royal demotion, often brought by force or intimidation.
Vocabulary lists containing subjugate
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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:
He was just a young man looking at a symbol of power and not caring much about who that power was used to subjugate.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2026
But she isn’t permitted to subjugate her characters to advance her own agenda, no matter how well-intentioned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2025
In 1876 President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the Army to subjugate the traditionals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
As he told the court that Combs had used his fame and power to "subjugate" his victims, the music mogul did not look up, remaining expressionless for the judge's 20-minute speech.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2025
If Minya had gotten Skathis’s power, she wondered, would she be any different from him, or would she willingly subjugate a whole population, and justify it all within the rigid parameters of justice.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
It recounts the terror of falling in love—how the process subjugates people, leaves them vulnerable.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 1, 2018
It's just another way our society subjugates men's emotions and it's really a shame.
From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2015
I read all the recent controversy surrounding Elisabeth Badinter's book, The Conflict, in which Badinter suggests breastfeeding and attachment parenting subjugates working women.
From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2012
On the other, it has tended to finesse or sidestep the issue of whether polygamy itself, or polygamy as practiced by the Henricksons, empowers or subjugates women.
From Time ● Mar. 21, 2011
No city has had that domination which sometimes derides those whom it subjugates.
From Les Misérables by Isabel Florence Hapgood
Mr. Higham accepts that these newcomers violently subjugated some regions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
Kaunda's message was clear - black Africans must no longer be subjugated.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2026
“I see my work as using health technologies that could preserve access to health for all people who have been subjugated to evil. That includes, at its most extreme, genocide,” Tabussam said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
In the early 1890s, U.S. political and military leaders tried to outlaw the Ghost Dance, fearing the movement was a precursor to an uprising in communities it subjugated.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
Over the course of the next 15 years, New Zealand was convulsed by the so-called Musket Wars, as musketless tribes either acquired muskets or were subjugated by tribes already armed with them.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
However, once Hernán Cortés triumphed, the conquistadors went from waging war — vanquishing the Aztecs — to the project of subjugating Indigenous holdouts and building a self-sustaining territory loyal to the crown.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 23, 2026
Aubrecht watches from afar as Yscalin falls to Fýredel, its ruler and populace subjugating themselves to the cruel dragons, desperate to avoid their wrath.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
His administration has helped keep Russia from subjugating the country, which was part of the Soviet Union before achieving its independence in 1991.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
He campaigned nearly every year of his reign, conquering land and subjugating peoples across central Europe.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
This period of rest was in all probability necessary to enable the army to be reorganized for further campaigns in that part of the world which he seems to have set his heart upon subjugating.
From The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia by Theophilus Goldridge Pinches
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.
