slave labor

SEE SYNONYMS FOR slave labor ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

persons, especially a large group, performing labor under duress or threats, as prisoners in a concentration camp; a labor force of slaves or slavelike prisoners.

labor done by slaves.

any coerced or poorly remunerated work: Typing at that salary is slave labor.

Origin of slave labor

First recorded in 1810–20

OTHER WORDS FROM slave labor

slave-la·bor, adjective

Words nearby slave labor

slave ant, slave bracelet, slave coast, slave cylinder, slave driver, slave labor, slave labor camp, slave river, slave ship, slave state, slave trade

Example sentences from the Web for slave labor

But free labor to-day differs from serf-labor and slave-labor only in that it has a legal right to contract.

Socialism and Democracy in Europe |Samuel P. Orth
Eventually, the climate was to prove an even greater obstacle to the transplantation of the slave-labor system into Kansas.

Stephen A. Douglas |Allen Johnson
Under the New System, such troublemakers were banished to the slave-labor details of the precious-earth mines to the North.

Blind Spot |Bascom Jones
He was the political economist of the slave-labor system, as Calhoun was its political scientist and constitutional lawyer.

The Middle Period 1817-1858 |John William Burgess

They nearly all continued to trade with the South, and to use the products of slave-labor.

The Grimk Sisters |Catherine H. Birney