(slāv)
noun- One bound in servitude as the property of a person or household.
- One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence: “I was still the slave of education and prejudice” (Edward Gibbon).
- One who works extremely hard.
- A machine or component controlled by another machine or component.
intransitive verb slaved slaved,
slav·ing,
slaves - To work very hard or doggedly; toil.
- To trade in or transport slaves.
Word History: The derivation of the word
slave encapsulates a bit of European history and explains why the two words
slaves and
Slavs are so similar; they are, in fact, historically identical. The word
slave first appears in English around 1290, spelled
sclave. The spelling is based on Old French
esclave from Medieval Latin
sclavus, “Slav, slave,” first recorded around 800.
Sclavus comes from Byzantine Greek
sklabos (pronounced sklävōs) “Slav,” which appears around 580.
Sklavos approximates the Slavs' own name for themselves, the
Slověnci, surviving in English
Slovene and
Slovenian. The spelling of English
slave, closer to its original Slavic form, first appears in English in 1538. Slavs became slaves around the beginning of the ninth century when the Holy Roman Empire tried to stabilize a German-Slav frontier. By the 12th century stabilization had given way to wars of expansion and extermination that did not end until the Poles crushed the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410. • As far as the Slavs' own self-designation goes, its meaning is, understandably, better than “slave”; it comes from the Indo-European root
*kleu-, whose basic meaning is “to hear” and occurs in many derivatives meaning “renown, fame.” The Slavs are thus “the famous people.” Slavic names ending in
-slav incorporate the same word, such as Czech
Bohu-slav, “God's fame,” Russian
Msti-slav, “vengeful fame,” and Polish
Stani-slaw, “famous for withstanding (enemies).”