bondage

/ˈbɑndɪdʒ/

/ˈbɒndɪdʒ/

Other forms: bondages

Bondage is the state of being bound, like an enslaved person. If you're in handcuffs, you're in bondage.

The word bondage has meant "condition of a serf or slave" since the 1300s, the same time the word bond came along to mean "anything that binds." Bondage originated around the time Dante was writing The Inferno, in which Satan flaps his wings to try and break free of bondage, as he's stuck in ice up to his chest.

Definitions of bondage

1. noun

   the state of being under the control of another person
   synonyms: slavery, thraldom, thrall, thralldom

   types:

   bonded labor

   a practice in which employers give high-interest loans to workers whose entire families then labor at low wages to pay off the debt; the practice is illegal in the United States

   servitude

   state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor imposed as punishment

   serfdom, serfhood, vassalage

   the state of a serf

   villainage, villeinage

   the legal status or condition of servitude of a villein or feudal serf

   type of:

   subjection, subjugation

   forced submission to control by others
2. noun

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

   sex, sex activity, sexual activity, sexual practice

   activities associated with sexual intercourse
3. noun

   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”

   type of:

   subjection, subjugation

   forced submission to control by others