emancipate.
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate.
Meaning & usage
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate.
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate. To cause (a place) to be free from the colonization or rule of another entity.
to emancipate a colony
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate. Often followed by from: chiefly with reference to slavery in the United States, and in Central and South America: to set free (oneself or someone) from imprisonment, or from serfdom or slavery.
to pass a law emancipating slaves
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate. To release (a minor) from the legal authority and custody which a parent or guardian has over them; also (Ancient Rome, historical), to release (a child) from the legal authority of the paterfamilias.
The child was emancipated from her parents
Often followed by from: to free (oneself or someone, or something) from some constraint or controlling influence (especially when evil or undue); also, to free (oneself or someone) from mental oppression.
Education can emancipate us from error or prejudices.
To place (something) under one's control; specifically (chiefly reflexive), to cause (oneself or someone) to become the slave of another person; to enslave; also, to subjugate (oneself or someone).
To become free from the oppression or restraint of another.
Where this word comes from
Learned borrowing from Latin ēmancipātus (“liberated, emancipated”) + English -ate (suffix forming verbs, and adjectives with the sense ‘characterized by the specified thing’). Ēmancipātus is the perfect passive participle of ēmancipō (“to declare (someone) free and independent of another’s power, emancipate; to give (something) from one’s authority or power into that of another, to alienate, transfer; to cause (oneself or someone) to become another’s slave; to make (someone) subservient”), from ē- (a variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’)) + mancipō (“to sell; to transfer”) (from manceps (“owner, possessor; purchaser; etc.”) + -ō (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs)). The verb emancipate has verb sense 1.1 (“to set free”) and verb sense 1.3 (“(obsolete) to place under one’s control”) which are contradictory. The Latin word ēmancipō had the same senses, and the Oxford English Dictionary notes that according to the Latin grammarian Paulus Festus (fl. 8th century) this is because both actions were effected by the legal process of mancipation.
Synonym of emancipated (“having been set free from someone's control, or from some constraint; at liberty, free”).
Where this word comes from
Learned borrowing from Latin ēmancipātus (“liberated, emancipated”) + English -ate (suffix forming verbs, and adjectives with the sense ‘characterized by the specified thing’). Ēmancipātus is the perfect passive participle of ēmancipō (“to declare (someone) free and independent of another’s power, emancipate; to give (something) from one’s authority or power into that of another, to alienate, transfer; to cause (oneself or someone) to become another’s slave; to make (someone) subservient”), from ē- (a variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’)) + mancipō (“to sell; to transfer”) (from manceps (“owner, possessor; purchaser; etc.”) + -ō (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs)). The verb emancipate has verb sense 1.1 (“to set free”) and verb sense 1.3 (“(obsolete) to place under one’s control”) which are contradictory. The Latin word ēmancipō had the same senses, and the Oxford English Dictionary notes that according to the Latin grammarian Paulus Festus (fl. 8th century) this is because both actions were effected by the legal process of mancipation.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.