From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishslaveslave1 /sleɪv/ ●●○ noun [countable] 1 SSLOW POSITION OR RANKsomeone who is owned by another person and works for them for no moneythe slave trade (=the buying and selling of slaves, especially Africans who were taken to America)2 → be a slave to/of something
Examples from the Corpus
slave• Seder participants recline on pillows, for example, because they had no such luxury as slaves, the children said.• Because slaves can have their interests counted equitably and still remain in bondage.• There was a female slave working outside, but when Burun rode up she did not even raise her head.• But trade in slaves has been a universal phenomenon, affecting all primitive societies.• These areas need developing, so entrepreneurs pump in investment: capital accumulated from the slave trade, sugar and cotton.• Many intransigent southerners never yielded the notion that the war itself was of no importance if the slave system was not maintained.• The slaves rose and backed out of the chamber, their eyes cast down.the slave trade• From the late 1780s onwards evangelicals contributed substantially to the pamphlet literature against the slave trade.• These areas need developing, so entrepreneurs pump in investment: capital accumulated from the slave trade, sugar and cotton.• During the first half of the nineteenth century Britain made the slave trade illegal.• By 1714 there was no longer any monopoly of the slave trade.• They devised a simple solution to this problem: the slave trade.• Such activities were by no means limited to the slave trade.• Analogies with the slave trade and slavery and the movement against them were apparent to such reformers.slaveslave2 verb [intransitive always + adverb/preposition] WORK HARDto work very hard with little time to restslave away (at something) I’ve been slaving away at this report.slave over He’s been slaving over his history essay.slave (away) over a hot stove (=cook – used humorously)→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
slave• You must cease this nonsensical life of yours, slaving away as if you were a servant!• Because I like you, Breeze, and it makes my blood boil to think of you slaving away as you do.• She spends the next ten years taking in washing, slaving away to pay back the money they borrowed to replace it.• Plus it has an effects loop, and a preamp out for slaving up to other power amps, and so on.slave away (at something)• Not much, is it, for a lifetime slaving away?• You must cease this nonsensical life of yours, slaving away as if you were a servant!• Because I like you, Breeze, and it makes my blood boil to think of you slaving away as you do.• Because you're slaving away in that little office all day doing stupid, piddling little jobs for me!• She spends the next ten years taking in washing, slaving away to pay back the money they borrowed to replace it.Origin slave1 (1200-1300) Old French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclavus, from Sclavus ( → SLAVIC); because in the early Middle Ages many Slavic people in central Europe were slaves 