freedman

Etymology

It is formed from English freed + man,^[2][3][4][5] freed being the past participle of free.^[6][3] The OED, in its revised entry, says that it was originally modelled on French libertin and its ultimate source Latin lībertus; the English noun libertine is recorded earlier in this sense.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man who was a slave but has been given his freedom: 1587, in Sidney and Golding's translation of de Mornay.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1591,^[7] and Etymonline to about 1600, noting that freeman is the older word.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a slave manumitted, and his quotation comes from Dryden's translation of Juvenal.^[5] The word then took on a particular American use, for people freed from slavery as a result of the Civil War.^[7][6] The Freedman's Bureau, the popular name of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was established by Congress in the War Department on March 3, 1865, and discontinued in 1872.^[6] The feminine counterpart is freedwoman.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1587 – a man released from slavery.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1591.^[7]
• 1865 – in the name of the Freedman's Bureau, in the United States.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person, especially a man, who has been freed from slavery; an emancipated slave.^[8][7][9][2]
2. Specifically, a person freed from slavery as a result of the American Civil War.^[7]

Related words

• free
• man
• freeman
• freedwoman
• libertine

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt