Definition of slave noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

slave

noun

/sleɪv/

a person who is owned by another person and is forced to work for and obey them
- A former slave, he graduated from Claflin University in South Carolina.
- She treated her daughter like a slave.
- the slave trader Edward Colston
- freed slaves
- Prisoners of war were regularly sold as slaves.
Many people prefer to use the term enslaved person because it shows that slavery is forced onto people and that being a slave is not part of their identity or natural condition. see also sex slave, wage slave
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Oxford Collocations Dictionary
adjective
- escaped
- fugitive
- runaway
- …
verb + slave
- become
- have
- keep
- …
slave + noun
- labour/labor
- labourer/laborer
- master
- …
preposition
- slave of
- slave to
See full entry
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a person who is so strongly influenced by something that they cannot live without it, or cannot make their own decisions
- slave of something We are slaves of the motor car.
- slave to something Sue's a slave to fashion.
Oxford Collocations Dictionary
adjective
- escaped
- fugitive
- runaway
- …
verb + slave
- become
- have
- keep
- …
slave + noun
- labour/labor
- labourer/laborer
- master
- …
preposition
- slave of
- slave to
See full entry
(specialist) a device that is directly controlled by another one

Word OriginMiddle English: shortening of Old French esclave, equivalent of medieval Latin sclava (feminine) ‘Slavonic (captive)’: the Slavonic peoples had been reduced to a servile state by conquest in the 9th cent.

See slave in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee slave in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English

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