slaving

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of slave.

   He spent the summer slaving in the warehouse to pay for college.

   They kept slaving away at the accounts until well past midnight.

   Note

   One spelling carries three quite different verbs. Most often it is the intransitive "work hard" sense, which takes no object: you slave at the accounts, or keep slaving away. The same -ing form can also mean enslaving people. Used transitively, it means putting one device under another's control, as in slaving a unit to a master clock.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or condition of holding people in slavery.

   The slaving of captured enemies provided much of the empire's labor.

   Abolitionists campaigned for years to end the slaving of human beings.

   Oppositeemancipation, liberation

   Note

   Unlike most abstract nouns of its kind, it can be counted. Single acts of enslaving can be counted and made plural, as in Marcia Wright's Strategies of Slaves & Women (1993), which recalls "the past slavings and excesses" of armed groups in a region. That plural keeps it apart from the shipping trade, which is spoken of as one continuous business rather than as separate acts.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The transport of enslaved people from one place to another, especially by sea.

   The slaving that linked Africa, the Americas, and Europe lasted for centuries.

   Naval patrols were sent to suppress the slaving off the West African coast.

   Similartrafficking

   Note

   A ship could be "equipped for slaving" with no captives aboard at all. Drachinifel's Anti-Slavery Patrols (2018) describes vessels being seized either for carrying slaves or for being fitted out for the trade. In this sense the word names the business itself, uncountable and often after for, so it can describe a vessel's purpose as well as its cargo.

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