Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, neither a slave nor a free citizen.
- noun A person in servitude; a serf.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One of a class of serfs among the ancient. Spartans who were owned by the state, were bound to the soil under allotment to landholders, and fulfilled all servile functions.
- noun Hence A serf or slave, in general; a servile person; one subject, to the orders and caprices of another.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A slave in ancient Sparta; a Spartan serf; hence, a slave or serf.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An individual of the ancient
Spartan class of serfs. - noun A
serf ; aslave .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The Palestinian American writer Rashid Khalidi uses the term "helot" (a term from the Greek of Ancient Greece to designate an indeterminate status between that of a slave and that of a citizen) to designate the position of Palestinian civilians who have neither civil rights nor any political opportunity to influence the behaviour of the state that dominates and controls their lives in endlessly demeaning and demoralising ways.
body on the line 2009
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Bet the helot women had a somewhat different view of Sparta. heteromeles on Apr 24th, 2010 at 4: 59 pm
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Still, even if Libertarian Utopia was to materialize through an act of God, having a powerless helot class in society doing all the dirty work is sort of a mixed bag, imho.
Borjas: What's His Problem?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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Most Americans see the damage done to their communities by illegal aliens; liberals (and Chamber of Commerce Republicans) want an expanded helot class.
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Most Americans see the damage done to their communities by illegal aliens; liberals (and Chamber of Commerce Republicans) want an expanded helot class.
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And don't assume that supporters of mass immigration and amnesty care about the welfare of the helot class they want to import.
A Childish Question About Immigration, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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He was a helot in the great hunt of helots that the masters were making.
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Even if one imagines a helot class of foreign residents who would be left to die at the door to emergency rooms, by operation of some law; we still have to be very restrictive of immigration now.
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They (and we) gloss over the details of how the Spartan helot society was radically at odds with the “for freedom” message that it sends.
300, 7000, Whatever 2007
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Other acts of violence and terror are recorded, and it seems that Spartan society as a whole suffered from a permanent fear of a helot rebellion.
OpEdNews - Diary: Palestinians in Gaza, the Modern Helots 2008
tsuomela commented on the word helot
Beany: What's a hee-lot?
The Colonel: You've ever been broke, sonny?
Beany: Sure, mostly often.
The Colonel: All right. You're walking along, not a nickel in your jeans, your free as the wind, nobody bothers ya. Hundreds of people pass you by in every line of buisness: shoes, hats, automobiles, radios, everything, and there all nice lovable people and they lets you alone, is that right? Then you get a hold of some dough and what happens, all those nice sweet lovable people become hee-lots, a lotta heels. They begin to creep up on ya, trying to sell ya something: they get long claws and they get a stranglehold on ya, and you squirm and you duck and you holler and you try to push them away but you haven't got the chance. They gots ya. First thing ya know you own things, a car for instance, now your whole life is messed up with alot more stuff: you get license fees and number plates and gas and oil and taxes and insurance and identification cards and letters and bills and flat tires and dents and traffic tickets and motorcycle cops and tickets and courtrooms and lawers and fines and... a million and one other things. What happens? You're not the free and happy guy you used to be. You need to have money to pay for all those things, so you go after what the other fellas got. There you are, you're a hee-lot yourself.
August 23, 2007
reesetee commented on the word helot
Story of my life. ;-)
August 23, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word helot
"In fact, only half her attention was focused on the heavyset gentleman's murmured remarks to his helot, a small young woman in an overall too big for her, with pink streaks in her hair."
—Diana Gabaldon, A Breath of Snow and Ashes (New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), 976
February 3, 2010