Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or an instance of emancipating.
  • noun The condition of being emancipated.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of setting free from bondage, servitude, or slavery, or from dependence, civil restraints or disabilities, etc.; deliverance from controlling influence or subjection; liberation: as, the emancipation of slaves; emancipation from prejudices, or from burdensome legal disqualifications; the emancipation of Catholics by the act of Parliament passed in 1829.
  • noun The freeing of a minor from parental control.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of setting free from the power of another, from slavery, subjection, dependence, or controlling influence; also, the state of being thus set free; the act or process of emancipation, or the state thereby achieved; liberation

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of setting free from the power of another, from slavery, subjection, dependence, or controlling influence
  • noun The state of being thus set free; liberation; used of slaves, minors, of a person from prejudices, of the mind from superstition, of a nation from tyranny or subjection.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun freeing someone from the control of another; especially a parent's relinquishing authority and control over a minor child

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

The use of emancipation to refer to anti-slavery, abolitionism, is attributed to Charles Godfrey Leland.

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Examples

  • Both men were equally against slavery: Lundy for gradual emancipation and _colonization_; but Garrison for _immediate and unconditional emancipation_.

    History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens George Washington Williams

  • It is not customary to use the term emancipation for that form of dismissal by which a church is released from parochial jurisdiction, a bishop from subordination to his metropolitan, a monastery or order from the jurisdiction of the bishop, for the purpose of placing such person or body under the ecclesiastical authority next higher in rank, or under the pope himself.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy 1840-1916 1913

  • The term emancipation is also applied to the release of a secular ecclesiastic from his diocese, or of a regular from obedience and submission to his former superior, because of election to the episcopate.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy 1840-1916 1913

  • In this process, which we call emancipation, she has in a sense lost sight of the purposes of emancipation.

    The Business of Being a Woman Ida M. Tarbell 1900

  • Having thus "prepared the question of suffrage," he says: -- "Many persons who mistook their ground in opposing the abolition of slavery, are naturally shy of being caught again and are half ready to leap into the gulf of what they call the emancipation of woman before they can distinctly see the bottom of it."

    THE WOMAN'S ADVOCATE 1869

  • Having thus "prepared the question of suffrage," he says: -- "Many persons who mistook their ground in opposing the abolition of slavery, are naturally shy of being caught again and are half ready to leap into the gulf of what they call the emancipation of woman before they can distinctly see the bottom of it."

    A Review. 1869

  • Having thus "prepared the question of suffrage," he says: -- "Many persons who mistook their ground in opposing the abolition of slavery, are naturally shy of being caught again and are half ready to leap into the gulf of what they call the emancipation of woman before they can distinctly see the bottom of it."

    The Woman's Advocate. 1869

  • Biko spoke of liberation as both an act of claiming land and legal rights but also an act of psychological emancipation from the chains of the mind where by people internalized the prejudices of the oppressor and then oppresses others the way they have been oppressed.

    Open Letter from Sex Worker Advocate to South Africa’s Honorable Premier Nomvula Mokonyane « Bound, Not Gagged 2009

  • A tart whistle awaited its emancipation from the muddy fortress by way of a cavity she fashioned.

    Antonia Cruz Rafael: the ceramics of Ocumicho, Michoacan 2009

  • The Civil War, with its swashbuckling heroes, its staggering toll, and its consequence of emancipation, is the culmination of an unorthodox intellectual journey.

    WalMart and the Civil War 2010

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