thrall
Pluralthralls (some meanings)
Verbthralls, thralling, thralled
Pluralthralls (some meanings)
Formsthralls, thralling, thralled
- 1The state of being held under the control or power of another.
For a decade the country was in thrall to a single ruling family.
The cult leader held his followers in thrall with promises of salvation.
Similarbondage, slavery, servitude, subjection
Note
The noun of state lives mostly in two set phrases: in thrall to someone or something, and hold someone in thrall. Both stretched long ago from masters to whatever grips the mind, so Jerome K. Jerome, in Three Men in a Boat (1889), has a soul held in thrall by photographs of other people's relatives, and today's children are in thrall to their phones.
- 2A slave, or anyone who is under the control of another.
The farm was worked by thralls captured in raids across the sea.
By forty he was a thrall to gambling, unable to drive past a casino without stopping.
Note
An old word with a long road behind it: Old English þrǣl came from Old Norse þræll, a slave, and the Germanic root beneath that meant a runner or errand boy. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales uses it for a servant held by right. Today it belongs to literary writing, and its figurative use is the one a reader is likeliest to meet: a thrall to alcohol, or to gambling.
- 3To reduce someone to slavery or make them a thrall.
The raiders thralled every villager they could catch and shipped them north.
A tyrant who would thrall his own people deserves no one's loyalty.
Similarenslave
Note
The verb was made from the noun in Middle English, as thrallen, and today it survives in literary writing; elsewhere it is archaic. Its forms are regular: thralls, thralled, thralling. Enthrall, built on the same noun, has drifted to mean captivate, while thrall itself still means to enslave outright, so a raider thralls his captives but a story enthralls its readers.
Less common meanings
- 4Held in bondage or captivity, under another's power.
Rather than live thrall to a foreign king, they fled into the mountains.
The captives were held thrall in the tower for seven years.
Note
The adjective is archaic and stands after a verb rather than before a noun: in Thomas Wyatt's Satire I the speaker will not live thrall under the awe of lordly looks, much as one might live free. Where enthralled now usually means fascinated, this word keeps the hard sense of captivity. Present-day English says it with being in thrall or with a plainer word such as captive.
- 5A shelf; a stand for barrels, etc.
Showing meanings only.
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Origins
From Middle English thral, from Old English þrǣl, “thrall, slave, servant,” from Old Norse þræll, “slave,” from Proto-Germanic *þrahilaz, “runner, servant,” from Proto-Indo-European *trāgʰ-, “to pull, run.” It is probably related to Old English þrǣġan, “to run.”
From Middle English thrallen, from the noun thrall. Compare Old Norse þræla.