serf

in a sentence

Russia's long-suffering women, our second serfdom, have been elevated to the status of equals.†  (source) Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow, 2016

There's a fancy little guardhouse on the island, like something the kings and queens in history would have built to keep out the serfs, or the Vandals, or whoever.†  (source) Edward Bloor, Tangerine, 1997

"Yes, my squalid little serf," I said, and fluttered my hands in royal dispensation.†  (source) Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, 2012

That man freed his serfs of his own free will.†  (source) Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys, 1982

In the feudal society of the Middle Ages, it was between feudal lord and serf; later on, between aristocrat and citizen.†  (source) Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World, 1991

Whatever it was called-feudalism and serfdom or capitalism and industrial workers, it was unnatural and unjust.†  (source) Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 1958

Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.†  (source) Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969

At first he'd been a little standoffish—as if he were a lord and I were a serf, Jones thought—until he'd seen how the skipper treated him.†  (source) Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October, 1984

But then the business of the day got under way, and in my harassed inability to keep up, it was like a double-quick-time stamping or dancing; angry grim waltz in which the clutched partners were out to wear one another down; or solo clog or tarantella of the hopping mad; or the limper sway of the almost gone from consciousness; the decorous sevillanas of the stiff whose faces didn't betray how their heels were slamming; the epidemic kick of German serfdom; the squatting kazatsky; the hesitation-step of adolescence; the Charleston.†  (source) Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March, 1949

And it encouraged a system of production that has turned many chicken farmers into little more than serfs.†  (source) Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, 2001

The drawers he wore were baggy and dirty and he did indeed look like some sad and ill used serf or worse.†  (source) Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, 1992

I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.†  (source) Ayn Rand, Anthem, 1937

When the lord of the manor met his assembled serfs they were always intoxicated with happiness that they could neither justify, nor explain, nor prolong in his absence.†  (source) Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War, 1991