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bondage

UK/ˈbɒn.dɪd͡ʒ/US/ˈbɑn.dɪd͡ʒ/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,422 of 15,258neutral

Bondage is the state of being somebody's slave. Held in bondage, freed from bondage, years of bondage.

In this sense the word is historical and biblical, and enslaved person is the phrasing preferred now for the person held. Slavery is illegal everywhere and still exists — modern slavery is the legal term for it. The word also has a sexual sense in modern use.

AsiaKink · Public domain

Definitions of bondage

  1. 1nounbondageThe state of being somebody's slave.B2+

    “The story tells how the people escaped from bondage in Egypt.”

bondage is a state of servitude.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin bondagium comes from Middle English bond, a tenant farmer or serf, from Old Norse bondi, a householder.

  1. Medieval Latin

    bondagium — an inferior tenure held by a bond or husbandman

  2. Middle English

    bondage — serfdom

  3. English, today

    bondage

Middle English bondage (“serfdom”), from British Medieval Latin bondagium (“an inferior tenure held by a bond or husbandman”), from Middle English bond (“tenant farmer, serf”), from Old English bonda (“householder, husband, head of a family”), of Old Norse - origin. Sense development influenced by the unrelated terms bond and bind.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

bondage in the wild

  • Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.

    Debt bondage

  • In 2021, the International Labour Organization estimated that, of the 27.6 million people currently participating in forced labour, 20.9%, or about 5.8 million, were in debt bondage.

    Debt bondage

  • Bondage may be used as an end in itself, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage.

    Bondage (BDSM)

  • Sexuality and erotica are an important aspect of bondage, but are often not the end in itself.

    Bondage (BDSM)

  • A number of bondage positions and methods are used in rope bondage and other BDSM activities.

    Bondage positions and methods

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.