indentured
To be indentured is to be forced to work by some contract. It started out as a word for a contract between masters and apprentices. Now it describes anyone bound to work, like it or not, because of some deal.
Use the adjective indentured to describe someone who's bound or attached in a legal sense. If you're an indentured plumber's apprentice, you have guaranteed that you'll do that job in a particular way, for a specific length of time. If you're indentured to your grandmother, you may have promised to feed her cat every day for a month. When the word is used in this casual way, it implies a sense of duty that's become a burden.
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bound or forced by contractsynonyms: apprenticed, articled, boundunfreehampered and not free; not able to act at will
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Vocabulary lists containing indentured
Based on the true story of the settlement of Jamestown, this novel follows twelve-year-old Samuel Collier as he goes from being an orphan on the streets of London to the page of Captain John Smith on his journey to the New World.
Joe Mondragon finds a dry plot of land and illegally taps into an irrigation channel, setting up a battle between big business and the small farmers of Milagro.