Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A man who has been freed from slavery.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A man who has been a slave and is manumitted or otherwise set free: as, the freedmen of ancient Rome; the class of freedmen created by the abolition of slavery.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A man who has been a slave, and has been set free.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
man who has been released from a condition ofslavery .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person who has been freed from slavery
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A Roman slave on being manumitted was called a freedman (libertinus) and became a citizen.
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The ranks of the army called the freedman to the rescue of his race.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 Various
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A freedman is the proper person to carry a load on the street, not his patron.
Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi Amphitryon, The Comedy of Asses, The Pot of Gold, The Two Bacchises, The Captives Titus Maccius Plautus 1919
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To supplement the work of the schools and churches in the religious training of the freedman was the great and blessed mission of the W.B. H.M. Society.
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This, unfortunately, is not at present the result of negro mental training, and it never will be, so long as the home-life of the freedman is the antipode of the schoolroom.
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On the other hand the Freedman's Bureau acted as his guardian and friend, looked after his interests in contracts, prohibited the law's barbarity, and insisted stubbornly that the freedman was a man, and must be treated as such.
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The freedman is a successful trapper and hunter, and has by nature an insight into these things.
Winter Sunshine John Burroughs 1879
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Scamander's patron (as they used to call a freedman's old master) was next brought to trial, and with the same result.
Roman life in the days of Cicero Alfred John Church 1870
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They were ready when Emancipation came, and the amendments to the Constitution followed, to organize the "freedman," instruct and coach him, and place him securely into the Republican fold.
Unwritten History 1919
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It was built for the colored refugees with a fund sent to General Saxton for this purpose by a ladies 'freedman's aid society in England.
bilby commented on the word freedman
"He broke his promise of holding the treasonous South accountable and, despite appearing progressive in the early days, ending up doing more to destroy Reconstruction than the shiftless freedmen who cluttered up Congress with the cries of raped white maidens and clatter of stripped chicken bones."
- Matt Cale, Assholes of the American Presidency, ruthlessreviews.com, 14 July 2009.
November 6, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word freedman
Cf. freedwoman.
March 23, 2011