manumission

English

WOTD – 28 August 2015

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin manūmissiō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mænjʊˈmɪʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Noun

manumission (countable and uncountable, plural manumissions)

1. Release from slavery or other legally sanctioned servitude; the giving of freedom; the act of manumitting.
   • 1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter IV, in The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Charles Wiley;  […], →OCLC:

     The manumission of the slaves in New York has been gradual.

   • 1867, John Lord, The Old Roman World: the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization‎^[1]:

     The most important law of Augustus, was the lex oelia sentia, deserving of all praise, which related to the manumission of slaves.

   • 1881, Grant Allen, chapter 19, in Anglo-Saxon Britain:

     In the west, and especially in Cornwall, the names of the serfs were mainly Celtic,—Griffith, Modred, Riol, and so forth,—as may be seen from the list of manumissions preserved in a mass-book at St. Petroc's, or Padstow.

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

     The more innocent dreamed of a manumission kindly bestowed by the new Emperor as one of a number of acts of justice and clemency proper to a new reign.

   • 2012 November 30, Paul Finkelman, “The Real Thomas Jefferson: The Monster of Monticello”, in New York Times‎^[2], retrieved 3 August 2015:

     Rather than encouraging his countrymen to liberate their slaves, he opposed both private manumission and public emancipation.

Related terms

• manumit
• manumitter
• manumittor
• manumissive

Translations

release from slavery, freedom, the act of manumitting

• Dutch: vrijlating (nl) f
• Finnish: manumissio (fi)
• French: manumission (fr) f, affranchissement (fr) m
• German: Freilassung (de) f
• Greek: χειραφέτηση (el) f (cheirafétisi)
• Macedonian: ослободување роб n (osloboduvanje rob), манумисија f (manumisija)
• Polish: uwolnienie (pl) n, uwłaszczenie (pl) n
• Russian: please add this translation if you can
• Sumerian: 𒂼𒄄 (ama-gi), 𒂼𒅈𒄄 (ama-ar-gi)

See also

• emancipation, liberation

French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin manūmissiōnem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ma.ny.mi.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

manumission f (plural manumissions)

1. (historical) manumission

   Synonym: affranchissement

Further reading

• “manumission”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.