Forms: see next. [f. next + -DOM.] The state or condition of being a thrall; bondage, servitude; captivity. a. lit.
c. 1205. Lay., 29156. Summe heo fluȝen to Irlonde … and þer wuneden þeouwe inne þraldome.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 2322. Driuen In-to ðraldom, euermor to liuen.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVIII. 103. And ȝowre Fraunchise, þat fre was fallen is in thraldome.
1450–1530. Myrr. our Ladye, 331. Theyr delyuerance oute of the thraldome of Egypte.
1590. Webbe, Trav. (Arb.), 14. In the midst of my thraldome in Turkie.
1617. Moryson, Itin., II. 25. Tyrone was among the Irish celebrated as the Deliverer of his Country from thraldome.
1756. Hume, Hist. Eng., II. xli. 432. Elizabeth … would have been sure to detain him in perpetual thraldom.
1824. T. S. Winn, Emancipation, 2. They [slaves] will not much longer suffer a comparatively few emaciated Whites to hold them in thraldom; who in the struggle will most likely be driven from the country, or sacrificed on the spot, as in San Domingo.
1872. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 165. Shoemakers were among the first to rescue themselves from the thraldom of the lords of the soil.
b. fig.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 139. Alle oðer daȝes of þe wike beoð to þreldome to þis dei.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 53. Þe moost þraldom and worst of alle is þe þraldom of synne.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, II. xii. 58. To chastise þe body, to bring it in þraldom.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. xv. (1634), 74. This miserable estate whereunto man is now in thraldome.
1755. Young, Centaur, iii. Wks. 1757, IV. 170. This thraldom to their pleasures.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 46. She may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains.
