as in serfdom
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Recent Examples of peonage
The Black community’s relationship with growing food is colored by exploitive practices, from slavery to sharecropping, tenant farming and peonage, or debt servitude.
—
Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024
Further, this much control over the autonomy of an athlete’s rights to their own NIL rights combined with a financial obligation could also trigger scrutiny under the 13th Amendment, which, in addition to abolishing slavery, placed prohibitions on peonage (i.e., working against your will).
—Joe Sabin, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
Convict leasing, also called peonage, juxtaposed the infrastructure of the Old English debtor’s prison with the barbarism of chattel slavery to bolster American capitalism.
—Phillip Vance Smith, JSTOR Daily, 1 Feb. 2024
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 2024
See All Example Sentences for peonage
Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2024
Further, this much control over the autonomy of an athlete’s rights to their own NIL rights combined with a financial obligation could also trigger scrutiny under the 13th Amendment, which, in addition to abolishing slavery, placed prohibitions on peonage (i.e., working against your will).
—Joe Sabin, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
Convict leasing, also called peonage, juxtaposed the infrastructure of the Old English debtor’s prison with the barbarism of chattel slavery to bolster American capitalism.
—Phillip Vance Smith, JSTOR Daily, 1 Feb. 2024
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 2024
See All Example Sentences for peonage
Recent Examples of Synonyms for peonage
Noun
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Kollwitz’ life also coincided with the final days of aristocratic feudalism and serfdom in Germany and the nation’s economic transition to Industrialism.—
Chadd Scott,
Forbes.com,
24 Apr. 2025
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Their desire for freedom was at the same time a denunciation of serfdom.—
Michael Bruening,
The Conversation,
25 Feb. 2025
Noun
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There was, however, a fateful exception: slavery or involuntary servitude would remain permissible as punishment for crimes.—
Matthew Wills,
JSTOR Daily,
30 June 2025
-
Later that year, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.—
Maura Fox,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
21 June 2025
Noun
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The tragedy of slavery is also explored here, including an award-winning exhibit called Slavery and Cotton in the Shoals with work by textile artist Valerie S. Goodwin.—
Lisa Cericola,
Southern Living,
5 July 2025
-
Douglass’s decision to speak on July 5, deliberately after Independence Day celebrations, symbolically underscored his argument: America’s celebration of freedom was bitterly ironic and deeply hypocritical in the context of slavery and racial oppression.—
Ed Gaskin,
Boston Herald,
4 July 2025
Noun
-
The judge kept his half-brothers in bondage in Austin until Juneteenth in 1865.—
Michael Barnes,
Austin American Statesman,
2 July 2025
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In the gap between law and emancipation, white landowners reaped profits, and Black families remained in bondage, unaware of the paper promises made in Washington.—
Sughnen Yongo,
Forbes.com,
19 June 2025
Noun
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On its second test flight, however, the pilot was not available and Smolinski and Blake decided to take the wheel/yoke.—
Scott Lafee,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
24 June 2025
-
Where Harlan is decisive and self-possessed, Cane is anxious and unconfident, a good guy stymied by both the yoke of responsibility and his father’s tendency to cut him off at the knees (and punch him in the face).—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
19 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Peonage.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peonage. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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