manstealer
Etymology
From man + stealer.
manstealer means A slave-dealer; someone who seizes another person to hold that person as a slave or sell that person into slavery; more loosely: a slaveholder. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
Why “manstealer” is a great word
MANSTEALER — [Noun] A person who kidnaps others to sell or hold them as slaves; a slave-dealer. From man ("human being") + stealer ("one who steals"). First attested in the 1580s. Unlike "slaveholder" (which denotes a static state of ownership) or "kidnapper" (a general term for abduction), "manstealer" indicts the foundational act of commercial kidnapping that converts a person into property. It is the hand clamped over a mouth on a moonless path, the chain’s cold clink in a ship’s foul hold, and the ledger’s neat column tallying souls as chattel. The word is a fossil of a particular moral recognition: that the gravest theft is not of possessions but of a person.
noun
- A slave-dealer; someone who seizes another person to hold that person as a slave or sell that person into slavery; more loosely: a slaveholder.“The law is made for manstealers.”