freedwoman means A woman who has been released from a condition of slavery. It carries an Arena rating of 1395, earned across 57 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, freedwoman ranks #2,496 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,906 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #7,102 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #7,705 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words.
Why “freedwoman” is a great word
FREEDWOMAN — [Noun] A woman who has been released from a condition of slavery. From freed (past participle of 'free') + woman, modelled on the earlier term 'freedman'; first attested in English in the 1600s, with specific American usage recorded from 1865–70. Unlike 'freedman,' which specifies the masculine condition, or 'emancipist,' which historically denotes a pardoned convict in a penal colony, freedwoman carries the double weight of liberty and gender—a legal status etched onto a lived identity. It is the deliberate choice of a surname to replace a master's brand, the profound disorientation of a morning that is finally one’s own, and the quiet, monumental labor of constructing a life upon a foundation that was, until that moment, legally defined as another's property—a testament that liberation is not a conclusion, but a brutal and uncharted beginning.
Etymology
From freed + woman.
noun
- A woman who has been released from a condition of slavery.e.g.“Education was a high priority for Appalachian freedmen and freedwomen just as it was for blacks throughout the Reconstruction South.” — 2001, John C. Inscoe, “Introduction”, in Appalachians and Race: The Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation, page 7:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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