thrall

American  

[thrawl] / θrɔl /

noun

1. a person who is morally or mentally enslaved by some power, influence, or the like.

   He was the thrall of morbid fantasies.

2. a person held in bondage or slavery.

3. slavery; thralldom.

4. the condition of being in the power of something or someone; a state of subjugation or rapt absorption.

   We will receive no help from the media, who are for the most part in thrall to the political establishment.

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verb (used with object)

• thralls,
  present (3rd person singular)
• thralled,
  past participle,  past
• thralling
  present participle

1. Archaic. to put or hold in thralldom; enslave.

adjective

1. Archaic. subjected to bondage; enslaved.

thrall British  

/ θrɔːl /

noun

1. Also called: thraldom.   thralldom.  the state or condition of being in the power of another person

2. a person who is in such a state

3. a person totally subject to some need, desire, appetite, etc

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verb

1. (tr) to enslave or dominate

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unthralled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• thralling
  present
• thralled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• thrall
  simple
• thralls
  simple
• have thralled
  perfect
• has thralled
  perfect
• am thralling
  progressive
• are thralling
  progressive
• is thralling
  progressive
• have been thralling
  perfect progressive
• has been thralling
  perfect progressive

Past

• thralled
  simple
• had thralled
  perfect
• was thralling
  progressive
• were thralling
  progressive
• had been thralling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will thrall
  simple
• will have thralled
  perfect
• will be thralling
  progressive
• will have been thralling
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of thrall

First recorded before 950; Middle English thral, thral(l)e, threl(l)e, Old English thrǣl “bondman, slave, servant, thrall,” from Old Norse thrǣll “slave, servant”

Explanation

When you're in thrall to someone, you are under their control in some way. If you're being held as a hostage, you're in thrall to your captor. You can be in thrall to anything that holds you captive or controls your thoughts or actions, like an addiction, a disease, or a cult leader. The Old English word that thrall comes from literally means "slave" or "servant." Another word with the same root as thrall is enthrall, which is sort of a friendlier version of the same idea. If you're enthralled by someone, you're captivated or fascinated, rather than "held in bondage."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thrall thralls thralled thralling

And if that doesn’t ensure the populace is in thrall to the authoritarian narrative, the firemen of the novel burn books, ensuring ideas can’t get into the hands of the people.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

Graham was, rhetorically, almost pathetically in Trump’s thrall, heaping flattery onto a president who’d once posted Graham’s phone number online for mass harassment.

From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026

He was utterly in thrall to rugby and massively supportive of Gregor Townsend and his players.

From BBC ● May 17, 2026

In thrall to her mission, June rents a dusty, disheveled storage room in town.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026

Eril-Fane might have slain the gods and freed his people from thrall, but that thing remained, blocking out the sun, and lording their long torment over them.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

People have too easily forgotten the eras when deadly, disfiguring diseases held communities in thralls of fear and grief.

From Washington Times ● May 8, 2019

Male thralls likely were involved in cutting trees, building ships, and rowing those vessels for their Viking masters.

From National Geographic ● Dec. 28, 2015

This "Despicable Me" prequel finds the yellow pill-shaped wannabe-supervillain thralls in search of a master.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2015

While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

The thralls were pouring ale, and there was music, fiddles and skins and drums.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

This the sure instinct of his art taught him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not for such as she.

From Nicanor - Teller of Tales A Story of Roman Britain by Margaret West Kinney

Particularly one, that which would be capped next in the orbit of the lever, held him fascinated; the winking potentiality of it thralled him, as the troubled crystal devours the gaze of the Hindu magi.

From Atlantic Narratives Modern Short Stories by Elizabeth Ashe

His was a high and noble mind, chained and thralled by manifold circumstances and accidents to the dull pursuits of worldly ambitions.

From The King's Highway by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Who had listened thralled to the silver speech which was all his?

From Nicanor - Teller of Tales A Story of Roman Britain by Margaret West Kinney

But these things were that life of the great North-west whose unspeakable lure thralled men's souls to the death, and he was content.

From The Maid of the Whispering Hills by Vingie E. (Vingie Eve) Roe

How a tamed lion learns to survive in the wilderness is told in an en thralling adventure film based on the bestseller by Joy Adamson.

From Time Magazine Archive

Miraculously, over-night, the shabby wall had blossomed into thralling splendor.

From Back Home by Eugene Wood

Slowly she drew near, thralling me as it were with the wonder of her look that I had neither power nor will to move or speak.

From Martin Conisby's Vengeance by Jeffery Farnol

Yet more than tropic's soft abundance thralling, My stormy North-land wilderness is calling!

From Russian Lyrics by Martha Dickinson Bianchi

In the Firelight My dear wife sits beside the fire   With folded hands and dreaming eyes, Watching the restless flames aspire,   And wrapped in thralling memories.

From Poems by John Hay