emancipate

Meanings

Verb

give equal rights to; of women and minorities
free from slavery or servitude
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 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 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.
To set free (a person or group) from the oppression or restraint of another; to liberate.
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.
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.

Adj

Synonym of emancipated (“having been set free from someone's control, or from some constraint; at liberty, free”).

Origin / Etymology

PIE word
*h₁eǵʰs
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)); and manceps is from Proto-Italic *manukaps, from *manus (“hand”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)meh₂- (“to beckon; to signal”)) + *-kaps (suffix denoting a catcher) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grab, seize; to hold”); referring to one who catches something in the hand).
The verb emancipate has sense 1.1 (“to set free”) and 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.

Synonyms

decolonize, disenslave, emancipated, enfranchise, liberate, manumit, unenslave

Scrabble Score: 16

emancipate is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
emancipate is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
emancipate is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 20

emancipate is a valid Words With Friends word