enslave

Etymology

It is formed from English en- + slave,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the prefix meaning "make into",^[3] though the Oxford Dictionary of English takes it as an intensifier.^[7] It was formerly also spelled inslave, with in-.^[8][7][2] Slave is from Old French esclave and directly from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”), originally "Slav", from the many Slavs sold into slavery.^[3][2] As a verb, that word already meant "to enslave" from the 1550s.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make a person or thing subject to another; to deprive of freedom, especially religious or political: 1605, in a translation by R. Buckland.^[2] The OED's revision of December 2022 moved this date back from those of the other dictionaries: Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1628, Dictionary.com 1635–45 and Etymonline the 1640s.^[2][6][9][3]

Semantic evolution

The figurative use came before the literal one in the OED's record: subjection in general from 1605, the hold of a passion, habit or belief over a person's will from 1621,^[2] and actually forcing someone into slavery only from 1656, in Cowley's Davideis.^[2] The Shorter Oxford likewise dates domination by a habit or passion to the early 17th century and reduction to slavery to the middle of it,^[8] and the Oxford Dictionary of English gives subjection to a superstition or passion as the early 17th-century sense.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to reduce to servitude; to deprive of liberty", and second as "to make over to another as his slave or bondman", quoting Milton and Dryden.^[10] The noun enslavement is recorded from the late 17th century and enslaver from the early 18th.^[8]

Timeline

• 1605 – to make subject to another; to deprive of freedom.^[2]
• 1621 – of a passion, habit or belief, to dominate a person's will.^[2]
• 1656 – to force a person or group into slavery, in Cowley's Davideis.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to 1628, and Etymonline to the 1640s.^[6][3]
• 1862 – intransitive, to force people into slavery, in D. Christy's Pulpit Politics.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a slave of a person or group; to force into slavery.^[11][6][2]
2. More broadly, to hold in a subject state; to subjugate: a people enslaved by debt and famine.^[6][11][2]
3. Of a passion, habit or belief, to dominate a person's will: He had let gambling enslave him.^[6][2][8]

Word family

• enslavement
• enslaver
• unenslaved
• reenslave

Related words

• slave
• slavery

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins