Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- slavery or involuntary servitude; serfdom.
- the state of being bound by or subjected to some external power or control.
- the state or practice of being physically restrained, as by being tied up, chained, or put in handcuffs, for sexual gratification.
- Early English Law. personal subjection to the control of a superior; villeinage.
noun
- slavery or serfdom; servitude
- Also called: villeinage (in medieval Europe) the condition and status of unfree peasants who provided labour and other services for their lord in return for holdings of land
- a sexual practice in which one partner is physically bound
c.1300, “condition of a serf or slave,” from Anglo-Latin bondagium, from Middle English bond “a serf, tenant farmer,” from Old English bonda “householder,” from Old Norse boandi “free-born farmer,” noun use of present participle of boa “dwell, prepare, inhabit,” from PIE *bhow-, from root *bheue- “to be, exist, dwell” (see be). Meaning in English changed by influence of bond. The sexual sado-masochism sense is recorded by 1966.