slave

 
Pronunciation: /sleɪv/

noun

  • (especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them: he killed the natives or turned them into slaves
  • a person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation: by the time I was ten, I had become her slave, doing all the housework
  • a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something: the poorest people of the world are slaves to the banks she was no slave to fashion
  • a device, or part of one, directly controlled by another: [as modifier]: a slave cassette deckCompare with master1

verb

[no object]
  • work excessively hard: after slaving away for fourteen years all he gets is two thousand
  • [with object] subject (a device) to control by another: should the need arise, the two channels can be slaved together

Origin:

Middle English: shortening of Old French esclave, equivalent of medieval Latin sclava (feminine) 'Slavonic (captive)': the Slavonic peoples had been reduced to a servile state by conquest in the 9th century