v. Also 7–8 inslave. [f. EN-1 + SLAVE.]
1. trans. To reduce to slavery; to make a slave of. Also absol.
1656. Cowley, Davideis, II. (1710), I. 348. Enslav’d, and sold to Ashur by his Sins.
1793. Blackstone, Comm. (ed. 12), 539. Much less can it give a right to kill, torture, abuse, plunder, or even to enslave, an enemy, when the war is over.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 277. Prevent them from … enslaving their brethren, of whatever complexion.
1867. Pearson, Hist. Eng., I. 50. The ungrateful freedman might be enslaved again.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 348. Scipio … had moved forward from his head-quarters at Tunis, plundering and enslaving as he went.
2. transf. and fig. a. To reduce to political ‘slavery,’ deprive of political freedom.
α. 1643. Prynne, Treachery & Disloy. Papists, II. 43 (R.). Corrupt publicke Officers and Iudges of late times … have … endeavoured to enslave both us and our posterities.
1660. R. Coke, Just. Vind., 18. A nation may enslave it self by its too much wit.
1775. Johnson, Tax. no Tyr., 64. May with the same army enslave us.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 297. Such an army … was not very likely to enslave five millions of Englishmen.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers Flor., x. 241. She [Florence] was enslaved, she, once the freest of the free.
β. 1700. Dryden, Fables, Cock & Fox, 384. Joseph … Who by a dream inslav’d th’ Egyptian land.
1767. T. Hutchinson, Hist. Prov. Mass., iv. 425. A letter giving intelligence of England’s confederating with France to inslave the Dutch.
b. In moral or intellectual sense: To render (a person) a ‘slave’ to passion, habit, superstition, etc.
α. c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), III. xxi. 34. He overacts the office of an Interpreter who doth enslave himself too strictly to words or phrases.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 28. I require those whose consciences are not wholly enslaved to their fancies and conceits.
1738. Wesley, Hymn, From whence these dire Portents around, vi. Let Sin no more my Soul enslave!
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., II. iv. 110. All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
1825. Lytton, Zicci, 24. I am enslaved by her beauty.
1876. Green, Short Hist., vi. § 5 (1882), 315. Luther declared man to be utterly enslaved by original sin.
1884. R. W. Church, Bacon, ix. 223. His Latin, without enslaving itself to Ciceronian types,… is singularly forcible and expressive.
β. 1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. viii. (1669), 239. To which unbridl’d Passions hurry the criminally unhappy Persons they have Inslav’d.
1706. Stanhope, Paraphr., II. 301. Pleasure inslaves us by often indulging.
1746. Hurd, Remarks Weston’s Enquiry, 18 (R.). Inslav’d to the Tenets of a conceited Philosophy.
