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

slave

noun
 
/sleɪv/
 
/sleɪv/
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  1. 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
    Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
    • escaped
    • fugitive
    • runaway
    verb + slave
    • become
    • have
    • keep
    slave + noun
    • labour/​labor
    • labourer/​laborer
    • master
    preposition
    • slave of
    • slave to
    See full entry
  2. 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 Dictionaryadjective
    • escaped
    • fugitive
    • runaway
    verb + slave
    • become
    • have
    • keep
    slave + noun
    • labour/​labor
    • labourer/​laborer
    • master
    preposition
    • slave of
    • slave to
    See full entry
  3. (specialist) a device that is directly controlled by another one
  4. 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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