Bondage

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: bond=age

CIDE DICTIONARY

Bondage, n. [LL. bondagium. See Bond, a.].

•  The state of being bound; condition of being under restraint; restraint of personal liberty by compulsion; involuntary servitude; slavery; captivity.  [1913 Webster]

  "The King, when he designed you for my guard,
  Resolved he would not make my bondage hard."  [1913 Webster]
•  Obligation; tie of duty.  [1913 Webster]

  "He must resolve by no means to be . . . brought under the bondage of observing oaths."  [1913 Webster]
•  Villenage; tenure of land on condition of doing the meanest services for the owner.  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Thralldom; bond service; imprisonment.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Bondage, n.
1 serfdom; slavery.
2 subjection to constraint, influence, obligation, etc.
3 sado-masochistic practices, including the use of physical restraints or mental enslavement.

Etymology

ME f. AL bondagium: infl. by BOND

THESAURUS

Bondage

absolutism, bond service, captivity, control, debt slavery, deprivation of freedom, disenfranchisement, disfranchisement, domination, enslavement, enthrallment, feudalism, feudality, helotism, helotry, indentureship, peonage, restraint, serfdom, serfhood, servility, servitude, slavery, subjection, subjugation, thrall, thralldom, tyranny, vassalage, villenage, yoke

ROGET THESAURUS

Bondage

Subjection

N subjection, dependence, dependency, subordination, thrall, thralldom, thraldom, enthrallment, subjugation, bondage, serfdom, feudalism, feudality, vassalage, villenage, slavery, enslavement, involuntary servitude, conquest, service, servitude, servitorship, tendence, employ, tutelage, clientship, liability, constraint, oppression, yoke, submission, obedience, subject, dependent, subordinate, feudal, feudatory, in subjection to, under control, in leading strings, in harness, subjected, enslaved, constrained, downtrodden, overborne, overwhelmed, under the lash, on the hip, led by the nose, henpecked, the puppet of, the sport of, the plaything of, under one's orders, under one's command, under one's thumb, a slave to, at the mercy of, in the power of, in the hands of, in the clutches of, at the feet of, at one's beck and call, liable, parasitical, stipendiary, under, slaves - in a land of light and law.