Noun: slave
| Singular | slave |
| Plural | slaves |
Sample Sentences
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Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty into the crew. One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture. Such incidents were not rare. [1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 9:]
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Art thou the ſlaue that with thy breath haſt kill'd / Mine innocent child? [1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:]
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a slave to passion, to strong drink, or to ambition
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Slave to the rhythm! / Keep it up, keep it up! / Never stop! Never stop! [1985, “Slave to the Rhythm”, in Slave to the Rhythm, performed by Grace Jones:]
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In the clip the black female “slave” dons a chain around her neck for which her white mistress possesses the key. The black woman sub is further disciplined by the power of speech—the force of silence. [[2016, Ariane Cruz, The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 39:]
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If you administer your own reverse DNS zones, remember to include them in your slave configuration. [2011, Roderick W. Smith, LPIC-2 Linux Professional Institute Certification Study Guide, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:]
Nouns inflected like slave
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. substrateder.?
3. Proto-Indo-European *ḱlewH-der.?
4. Proto-Slavic *slov-
5. Proto-Slavic *-ǫta
6. Proto-Slavic *Slov-?
7. Proto-Balto-Slavic *-ēnas
8. Proto-Indo-European *-nós
9. Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos
10. Proto-Slavic *-inъ
11. Proto-Slavic *-ěninъ
12. Proto-Slavic *slověninъder.
13. Ancient Greek Σκλαβηνός (Sklabēnós)der.
14. Byzantine Greek Σκλᾰ́βος (Sklắbos)bor.
15. Late Latin Sclavus
16. Medieval Latin sclavusbor.
17. Old French esclavebor.
18. Middle English sclave
19. English slave
20. Inherited from Middle English sclave, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”), from Late Latin Sclavus (“Slav”), traditionally assumed to be because Slavs were often forced into slavery in the Middle Ages. The Latin word is from Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος (Sklábos); see that entry and Slav for more. Displaced native Old English þēow. Thrall and bondsman/bondswoman, however, remain common synonyms. Doublet of ciao and Slav.
21. An alternative hypothesis derives sclavus from Ancient Greek σκῡλεύω (skūleúō), σκῡλάω (skūláō, “to strip or despoil a slain enemy”). See: Middle English Nouns '
sclave', Middle English Nouns '
sclave'.