What does bondage mean?

Definitions for bondage
ˈbɒn dɪdʒbondage

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word bondage.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. bondagenoun

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

    "he was in bondage to fear:; "he sought release from his bondage to Satan"; "a self freed from the bondage of time"

  2. bondage, slavery, thrall, thralldom, thraldomnoun

    the state of being under the control of another person

  3. bondagenoun

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

Wiktionary

  1. bondagenoun

    The state of being enslaved or the practice of slavery.

    In Judeo-Christian tradition, the Israelites fled bondage at the hands of the Egyptians, only to wander in the wilderness for the next four decades.

  2. bondagenoun

    The state of lacking freedom; constraint.

    He lived in financial bondage to his cocaine habit; no matter how much he earned, it all seemed to disappear up his nose.

  3. bondagenoun

    The practice of tying people up for sexual pleasure.

    Their marriage broke up when she discovered he had been engaging in bondage games with a local dominatrix while he was supposedly working out at the gym.

  4. Etymology: From bondage, from (Anglo-Latin) bondagium, from bond, from bonda, of origin, from bóndi, bóandi, from bóa, búa, from būanan, from bhōw-. Cognate with and bóndi, bo, bauen, boer, bower. See also neighbour, booth, build.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Bondagenoun

    Captivity; imprisonment; state of restraint.

    Etymology: from bond.

    You only have overthrown me, and in my bondage consists my glory. Philip Sidney, b. ii.

    Say, gentle princess, would you not suppose
    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen? ——
    —— To be a queen in bondage, is more vile
    Than is a slave in base servility. William Shakespeare, Henry VI. p. i.

    Our cage
    We make a choir, as doth the prison’d bird,
    And sing our bondage freely. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline.

    He must resolve by no means to be enslaved, and brought under the bondage of observing oaths, which ought to vanish, when they stand in competition with eating or drinking, or taking money. South.

    The king, when he design’d you for my guard,
    Resolv’d he would not make my bondage hard. Dryden.

    If she has a struggle for honour, she is in a bondage to love; which gives the story its turn that way. Alexander Pope, notes on Iliad.

ChatGPT

  1. bondage

    Bondage refers to the state or condition of being a slave or being subjected to some form of control or restriction. It can also refer to a sexual practice where partners willingly use restraints for erotic or aesthetic pleasure.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Bondageadjective

    the state of being bound; condition of being under restraint; restraint of personal liberty by compulsion; involuntary servitude; slavery; captivity

  2. Bondageadjective

    obligation; tie of duty

  3. Bondageadjective

    villenage; tenure of land on condition of doing the meanest services for the owner

Wikidata

  1. Bondage

    Bondage is the tying, binding, or restraining of a person for the sexual, aesthetic, and/or psychological pleasure of the parties involved. Rope, cuffs, bondage tape, self-adhesive bandages, or other restraints may be used for this purpose. Bondage itself does not contain sadomasochism. Bondage may be used as an end into itself, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage. It may also be used as a part of sex or in conjunction with other BDSM activities. The letter "B" in the acronym "BDSM" comes from the word "bondage". Sexuality and erotica are an important aspect in bondage, but are often not the end in itself. Aesthetics also plays an important role in bondage. The most common reason for the active partner to tie up his/her partner is pleasure from the restrained partner's submission and the feeling of the temporary transfer of control and power. For sadomasochistic people, bondage is often used as a means to an end, where the restrained partner is more accessible to other sadomasochistic behaviour. However, bondage can also be used for its own sake. The active partner can derive visual pleasure from seeing his/her partner tied up, and the restrained partner can derive tactile pleasure from the feeling of helplessness and immobility.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Bondage

    bond′āj, n. state of being bound: captivity: slavery.—n. Bond′ager, a female outworker in the Border and North country, whom the hind or married cottar was bound to provide for the farm-work. [O. Fr.; Low L. bondagium, a kind of tenure. Acc. to Skeat, this is from A.S. bonda, a boor, a householder, from Ice. bóndi = búandi, a tiller, a husbandman, búa, to till, cog. with A.S. búan.]

Matched Categories

Anagrams for bondage »

  1. dogbane

  2. gone bad

How to pronounce bondage?

How to say bondage in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of bondage in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of bondage in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3

Examples of bondage in a Sentence

  1. Joe Biden:

    Perhaps no music has had as profound and powerful an impact in shaping America's musical score as Black music, for generations, Black music has conveyed the hopes and struggles of a resilient people -- spirituals mourning the original sin of slavery and later heralding freedom from bondage, hard truths told through jazz and the sounds of Motown during the civil rights movement, and hip-hop and rhythm and blues that remind us of the work that still lies ahead.

  2. Melvin Maddocks:

    A man's work is his dilemma his job is his bondage, but it also gives him a fair share of his identity and keeps him from being a bystander in somebody else's world.

  3. Jennifer Kempton:

    It very much so is a psychological form of bondage, it ties you to those memories and it ties you to those feelings that you felt when you got that and to be able to be free of enslavement and then to make an active choice of, 'This is what I want on my body, not this man's name or this gang's symbol, I want my daughter's name, I want a beautiful flower, I want a religious scripture, I want a butterfly to show that I have wings, and I can fly.'.

  4. Agatha Christie, Appointment with Death:

    No country can be described as free- but each has different degrees of bondage.

  5. Robert Cleary:

    That was their choice, there was no debt, there was no bondage, there was no forced labor.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

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Translations for bondage

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"bondage." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/bondage>.

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