Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One, such as a slave or serf, who is held in bondage.
- n. One who is intellectually or morally enslaved.
- n. Servitude; bondage: "a people in thrall to the miracles of commerce” ( Lewis H. Lapham).
- v. Archaic To enslave.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A slave; a serf; a bondman; a captive.
- n. One who is a slave to some desire, appetite, spell, or other influence; one who is in moral bondage.
- n. Thraldom, literal or figurative; bondage; slavery; subjection.
- n. A shelf or stand; a stand for barrels.
- Enslaved; bond; subjugated.
- Figuratively, subject; enthralled.
- To deprive of liberty; enslave.
- Figuratively, to put in subjection to some power or influence; enthrall.
Wiktionary
- n. One who is enslaved or mind-controlled.
- n. uncountable The state of being under the control of another person.
- v. To make a thrall.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A slave; a bondman.
- n. Slavery; bondage; servitude; thraldom.
- n. Prov. Eng. A shelf; a stand for barrels, etc.
- adj. obsolete Of or pertaining to a thrall; in the condition of a thrall; bond; enslaved.
- v. Obs. or Poetic To enslave.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone held in bondage
- n. the state of being under the control of another person
Etymologies
- Old English þrǣl, from Old Norse þræll ("slave") whence the Icelandic þræll ("slave"); according to ODS probably akin to Old High German drigil, servant, to the Gothic 𐌸𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽 (þragjan) and to the Old English þrægan, to run (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English thrǣl, from Old Norse thrǣll. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The other survivor is a bombastic general from the other clan, in thrall to military glory, in love with death.”
“I am on the left and in thrall to Karl Marx, Gul tells Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror.”
The Guardian: Pakistan cricketer calls on Marxist in case for the defence
“You are either a stupid troll in thrall to the screechmonkeys that do your thinking for you and knowing you are too stupid to even TRY to discuss the topic or you are a mental patient who needs to increase your meds.”
“But at this point they are discovering that they are just as much in thrall as the centrists to paymasters uninterested in universal coverage.”
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Negotiating Against Themselves
“The truth is that Britain's economic policymakers are as in thrall to bankers as their 1970s forerunners were to trade unionists.”
The Guardian: Pleading with banks won't do. Osborne needs a plan B
“It's heartening to know that not all Mexicans are in thrall to the mighty Christmas tree and still put up nacimientos in their homes!”
“Funds to finance these huge war loans was borrowed from China and Japan, putting America ever deeper in thrall to the Asian powers, and undermining its finances.”
“The NSO players are plainly in thrall to Eschenbach, whose qualities are diametrically opposed to his predecessor, Leonard Slatkin.”
The Washington Post: Eschenbach, Tetzlaff, Bruckner: The fresh and less familiar faces of the NSO
“In their third and final television debate, Elaine Marshall bashed incumbent Republican Senator Richard Burr as a homophobic influence-peddler in thrall to big pharma and the military-industrial complex.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Carmichael: Marshall Bashes Burr on Taxes, Gay Rights & Afghanistan
“Students spend years cramming details for memorized tests; the ones who succeed then spend years in thrall to entrenched professors.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thrall’.
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Deprefixed words
A list of words you more frequently hear used with prefixes than without.
clement, witting, ravel, whelm, fettered, licit, couth, bridled, wieldy, kempt, ingenuous, iterate and 116 more...
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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Monosyllabic.
How much oomph can you fit in one of them words what don't use more than one sound byte.
morph, deign, pip, thwart, swerve, awe, clash, squall, shriek, prowl, throng, deft and 22 more...
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Big words I stumbled across
panglossian, Panglossian, thrall, shivaree, begs the question, neologism, wilding, opsimath, sibilant, gloaming, trilling, diurnal
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Wunderkammer
A not-so-secret cache of wonderfilled words; may be mythical, magical, philosophical, oddball or just plain cool
thaumazein, anacampserote, cledonism, mirabile dictu, limen, sough, amaranthine, anamorphosis, lyribliring, lubberland, luciferous, madstone and 31 more...
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Verecund, flivver, etc
Just some words I happen to enjoy. Some thread-worn, some not.
yegg, yob, verecund, amatory, fermata, threepenny, gruntled, flivver, gamboge, decolletage, ordure, nudnik and 175 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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elvesoncrack's Words
lachrymose, blustering, fjord, chihuahua, chiffon, catalytic, stile, gefilte, prosh, thwart, ralph, ickle and 379 more...
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theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
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Chained Bear's Favorite Words
peruvian, sparky, poop, etymological, fuck, whatnot, pulchritude, nosh, tetched, quotidian, squalid, trajectory and 388 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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play words
words for a play
pert, vicissitude, melancholy, vexation, gaud, attestation, renunciation, wax, wrought, sunder, antipodes, reckoning and 236 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for thrall.
jwjarvis its penetrating ammonia scent held us in thrall Aug 25, 2011
Noelle Knight He might be in sexual thrall to Isabel, he might even love her and the danger she represented, but I didn't think his heart and mind were wholly committed to her. -Charlaine Harris, Living Dead in Dallas Dec 10, 2010
chained_bear From the OED online:
One who is in bondage to a lord or master; a villein, serf, bondman, slave; also, in vaguer use, a servant, subject; transf. one whose liberty is forfeit; a captive, prisoner of war.
Usage: c950 Lindisfarne Gospels, Mark x. 44 "And sua huæ see wælle in iuh formest wosa bie allra ræl." 991 Laws of Æthelred II. c. 5 §1 "yf Englisc man Deniscne ræl ofslea, ylde hine mid punde."
Wow. Mar 7, 2007