serfdom

«serfdom» in Mova's school dictionary: Serfdom was a system, mainly in the Middle Ages, in which… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (serfdom, uncountable)

meaning for a pupil

1) (history) Serfdom was a system, mainly in the Middle Ages, in which poor farm workers called serfs were tied to a lord's land and could not leave it. tree →

2) (history) Serfdom means the state of being a serf. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history lessons on the Middle Ages and the feudal system, the king gave land to lords, lords had knights, and serfs (also called villeins) worked the land; serfs had to give the lord crops and work for free and needed permission to marry or move. Serfdom ended in England after the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt, but lasted much longer in Russia. It was not exactly slavery, because serfs could not be sold apart from the land, but life was hard. Phrases: «end of serfdom», «abolish serfdom», «free from serfdom».

examples

• Under serfdom, peasants could not leave the lord's land. tree →
• Serfdom slowly ended in England after the Black Death. tree →
• The Russian tsar abolished serfdom, freeing millions of people. tree →
• Serfs paid the lord with work and crops. tree →
• The feudal system was built on serfdom. tree →
• Many peasants rebelled against serfdom. tree →

note

Uncountable. Person: «a serf, serfs». Homophone trap: «serf» (a worker tied to land) and «surf» (waves) sound the same. Serfdom is not the same as slavery, but both took away people's freedom.

In the corpora

• Most Ukrainian peasants in the Russian Empire were serfs until 1861; in Austrian Galicia serfdom ended in 1848.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «serfdom» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.