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
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 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
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
The Wilberforce Act covers physical abuse and peonage, which is forced labor.
—Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 6 June 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
See All Example Sentences for peonage
Recent Examples of Synonyms for peonage
Noun
-
Datebook Picks If Firs is a vestige of serfdom, Joseph O’Malley as eternal graduate student Pétya forecasts the coming revolution.—
Theater Critic,
San Francisco Chronicle,
5 Feb. 2026
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For them, freedom meant ending serfdom too.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
25 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Like the Lenten journey, the onset of Passover commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian servitude, the onset of a 40-year march homeward to the land of promise.—
Michael Pfleger,
Chicago Tribune,
29 Mar. 2026
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The Ten Commandments are about God having taken the initiative to rescue the Hebrew people from forced servitude.—
James Coffin,
The Orlando Sentinel,
15 Mar. 2026
Noun
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So too did the titular Joe Turner, the brother of Tennessee governor Pete Turner and a man responsible for taking prisoners from Memphis to Nashville, but who often sold them into a kind of neo-slavery on cotton plantations along the Mississippi River.—
Chris Jones,
New York Daily News,
26 Apr. 2026
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So too did the titular Joe Turner, the brother of Tennessee Governor Pete Turner and a man responsible for taking prisoners from Memphis to Nashville, but who often sold them into a kind of neo-slavery on cotton plantations along the Mississippi River.—
Chris Jones,
Chicago Tribune,
26 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Their joyous innocence depicts the newest generation of Black Americans who won’t contend with enslavement but will be forced to confront the terrors of Jim Crow.—
Aramide Tinubu,
Variety,
26 Apr. 2026
-
Every play in the Century Cycle has its roots in the cataclysm of enslavement, but Joe Turner takes place with Reconstruction still close in the rearview.—
Sara Holdren,
Vulture,
26 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
If Yahweh, who delivered Israel from bondage and parted the Red Sea, intervenes too soon, some of us will be denied that choice (parable of the wheat and the tares).—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
24 Apr. 2026
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There was even a Children’s Crusade in 1212 that turned out badly when some 30,000 children ended up dead or in bondage.—
Peter Lucas,
Boston Herald,
18 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
No one’s going to be stuck in a hand-over-hand situation like in a Tesla, with its horrid implementation of a yoke.—
Joel Feder,
The Drive,
2 Apr. 2026
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John holds on to the yoke, looking straight ahead, as alarms and red lights blare on the control panel.—
Rafaela Bassili,
Vulture,
27 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Peonage.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peonage. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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