''manumission'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260831211736-00-⌔

manumission - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

manumission (countable and uncountable, plural manumissions)

• (historical, uncountable) Release from slavery or other legally sanctioned servitude; the giving of freedom; (countable) an instance of this; an act of manumitting.
  • ✤ Synonyms: emancipation, enfranchisement, liberation
  • ✤ The manumission of the slaves in New York has been gradual.¹
  • ✤ The most important law of Augustus, was the lex oelia sentia, deserving of all praise, which related to the manumission of slaves.²
  • ✤ In the west, and especially in Cornwall, the names of the serfs were mainly Celtic,—Griffith, Modred, Riol, and so forth,—as may be seen from the list of manumissions preserved in a mass-book at St. Petroc’s, or Padstow.³
  • ✤ In the light of her bedroom candle Marguerite hung not in greater ecstasy over the jewel-casket than hung Zuleika over the box of tricks. She clasped her hands over the tremendous possibilities it held for her— manumission from her bondage, wealth, fame, power. Stealthily, so soon as the house slumbered, she packed her small outfit, embedding therein the precious gift.⁴
  • ✤ The more innocent dreamed of a manumission kindly bestowed by the new Emperor as one of a number of acts of justice and clemency proper to a new reign.⁵
  • ✤ Rather than encouraging his countrymen to liberate their slaves, he opposed both private manumission and public emancipation.⁶

Etymology

From Late Middle English manumissioun (“ (uncountable) release by a feudal superior or slaveowner from servitude, freedom from servitude; (countable) an instance of this; document granting such freedom; (figurative) Jesus’s redemption of humankind ”),⁷ from Anglo-Norman manumission and Middle French manumission, and from their etymon Latin manūmissiō (“emancipation of a slave, manumission”), from manūmiss- (the perfect passive participle stem of manūmittō (“to emancipate, free, release”)) + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs).⁸ Manūmittō is derived from manū (the ablative singular of manus (“hand”); further etymology uncertain, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡(s)meh₂- (“to beckon, signal”)) + mittō (“to discharge, release; to send”) (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡meyth₂- (“to release; to send; etc.”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˌmænjʊˈmɪʃn̩/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˌmænjəˈmɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -ɪʃən
• Hyphenation: man‧u‧miss‧ion

Printed 2026-08-31.

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Footnotes

1. 1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter IV, in The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; […], volume, New York, N.Y.: Charles Wiley; […], →OCLC: ↩

2. 1867, John Lord, The Old Roman World: the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

3. 1881, Grant Allen, chapter 19, in Anglo-Saxon Britain: ↩

4. 1911, Max Beerbohm, chapter II, in Zuleika Dobson ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

5. 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked: ↩

6. 2012 November 30, Paul Finkelman, “The Real Thomas Jefferson: The Monster of Monticello”, in New York Times ‎${}^{[3]}$, retrieved 3 August 2015: ↩

7. “manūmissiǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

8. “manumission, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025; “manumission, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩