BONDAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bondage mean? 

• BONDAGE (noun)
  The noun BONDAGE has 3 senses:

1. the state of being under the control of a force or influence or abstract power

2. the state of being under the control of another person

3. sexual practice that involves physically restraining (by cords or handcuffs) one of the partners

  Familiarity information: BONDAGE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BONDAGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being under the control of a force or influence or abstract power

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

a self freed from the bondage of time

Hypernyms ("bondage" is a kind of...):

subjection; subjugation (forced submission to control by others)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The state of being under the control of another person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

bondage; slavery; thraldom; thrall; thralldom

Hypernyms ("bondage" is a kind of...):

subjection; subjugation (forced submission to control by others)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bondage"):

bonded labor (a practice in which employers give high-interest loans to workers whose entire families then labor at low wages to pay off the debt; the practice is illegal in the United States)

servitude (state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor imposed as punishment)

serfdom; serfhood; vassalage (the state of a serf)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Sexual practice that involves physically restraining (by cords or handcuffs) one of the partners

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("bondage" is a kind of...):

sex; sex activity; sexual activity; sexual practice (activities associated with sexual intercourse)

 Context examples 

From that moment my state of mind changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

He might see a reason for his friend’s strange preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even for the startling clause of the will.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of untold centuries had reached its bloody end.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favor."

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

So he remained in his bondage waiting for her.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)