chattel

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“
His distorted idea of his own importance made him view her as a chattel, an inferior being; the more so, I believe, because she brought him little money when he married her.

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Law An article of movable personal property.
  2. noun A slave.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • After all, he had prevailed, and the chattel was his. —  Dragon's Gold
  • The positive principle underlying this declaration against divorce is the spirit of universal love that forbids that the wife should be treated, as was the case among the dissolute of our Lord's time, as a chattel or slave. —  Christianity and Ethics A Handbook of Christian Ethics
  • For all he knew to the contrary, she might have been long ago shipped off to the northern markets, and probably was, even while he talked of her, the inmate of an Arab harem, or at all events a piece of goods--a "chattel"--in the absolute possession of an irresponsible master. —  Black Ivory
  • By what is dear to thee, thy veriest own, I pray thee,--chattel or child, or holier name! —  The Seven Plays in English Verse
  • If slavery has so palsied his mind and he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such_, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. —  The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

chattel:   chattels
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English chatel, movable property, from Old French, from Medieval Latin capitāle; see cattle.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English chatel, chetel (with plural chateus, chatews, chateux, after Old French), from Old French chatel, assibilated form of catel (later Middle English catel), cattle, goods, property: see cattle and capital.
  2. from chattel, n.
 

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/ˈtʃætɛl/
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