servitude

servitude
    n 1: state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor
         imposed as punishment; "penal servitude"
    

Servitude \Serv"i*tude\, n. [L. servitudo: cf. F. servitude.]
   1. The state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a
      master; the condition of being bound to service; the
      condition of a slave; slavery; bondage; hence, a state of
      slavish dependence.
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            You would have sold your king to slaughter,
            His princes and his peers to servitude. --Shak.
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            A splendid servitude; . . . for he that rises up
            early, and goes to bed late, only to receive
            addresses, is really as much abridged in his freedom
            as he that waits to present one.      --South.
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   2. Servants, collectively. [Obs.]
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            After him a cumbrous train
            Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude.
                                                  --Milton.
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   3. (Law) A right whereby one thing is subject to another
      thing or person for use or convenience, contrary to the
      common right.
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   Note: The object of a servitude is either to suffer something
         to be done by another, or to omit to do something, with
         respect to a thing. The easements of the English
         correspond in some respects with the servitudes of the
         Roman law. Both terms are used by common law writers,
         and often indiscriminately. The former, however, rather
         indicates the right enjoyed, and the latter the burden
         imposed. --Ayliffe. Erskine. E. Washburn.
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   {Penal servitude}. See under {Penal}.

   {Personal servitude} (Law), that which arises when the use of
      a thing is granted as a real right to a particular
      individual other than the proprietor.

   {Predial servitude} (Law), that which one estate owes to
      another estate. When it related to lands, vineyards,
      gardens, or the like, it is called rural; when it related
      to houses and buildings, it is called urban.
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SERVITUDE, civil law. A term which indicates the subjection of one person to 
another person, or of a person to a thing, or of a thing to a person, or of 
a thing to a thing. 
     2. Hence servitudes are divided into real, personal, and mixed. Lois 
des Bat. P. 1, c. 1. 
     3. A real or predial servitude is a charge laid on an estate for the 
use and utility of another estate belonging to another proprietor. Louis. 
Code, art. 643. When used without any adjunct, the word servitude means a 
real or predial servitude. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1. 
     4. The subjection of one person to another is a purely personal 
servitude; if it exists in the right of property which a person exercises 
over another, it is slavery. When the subjection of one person to another is 
not slavery, it consists simply in the right of requiring of another what he 
is bound to do, or not to do; this right arises from all kinds of contracts 
or quasi con tracts. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 1. 
     5. The subjection of persons to things or of things to persons, are 
mixed servitudes. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 2. 
     6. Real servitudes are divided into rural and urban. Rural servitudes 
are those which are due by an estate to another estate, such as the right of 
passage over the serving estate, or that which owes the servitude, or to 
draw water from it, or to water cattle there, or to take coal, lime and wood 
from it, and the like. Urban servitudes are those which are established over 
a building fur the convenience of another, such as the right of resting the 
joists in the wall of the serving building, of opening windows which 
overlook the serving estate, and the like. Dict. de Jurisp. tit. Servitudes. 
See, generally, Lois des Bat. Part 1 Louis. Code, tit. 4; Code Civil, B. 2, 
tit. 4; This Dict. tit. Ancient Lights; Easements; Ways; Lalaure, Des 
Servitudes, passim. 
    

39 Moby Thesaurus words for "servitude":
      absolutism, attendance, bond service, bondage, captivity, control,
      debt slavery, deprivation of freedom, disenfranchisement,
      disfranchisement, domination, employ, employment, enslavement,
      enthrallment, feudalism, feudality, helotism, helotry,
      indentureship, ministration, ministry, peonage, restraint, serfdom,
      serfhood, servility, servitium, servitorship, slavery, subjection,
      subjugation, tendance, thrall, thralldom, tyranny, vassalage,
      villenage, yoke