CHATTEL Synonyms: 55 Similar and Opposite Words

chattel

noun

ˈcha-tᵊl

Definition of chattel

as in slave

a person who is considered the property of another person an amendment to end the keeping of humans as chattel

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in possession

chattels plural transportable items that one owns packed up all her chattels and moved to a new state

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of chattel These are human beings, not chattel. — Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2026 Before meeting Rael-Gálvez, Daria Celeste Landress had learned while researching her family history that three Indigenous ancestors had been listed in historical documents as chattel, alongside furniture, houses, and trees. — Geraldo Cadava, New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2026 Patriarchal cultures reduce women to economic dependence, treating them as a form of chattel to be traded among families. — Literary Hub, 6 Nov. 2025 There was no forgetting the notorious Confederate prison camps like Andersonville and Salisbury, the Confederate pogrom at Fort Pillow, and the fact that the South had seceded in the first place to perpetuate and expand an elite-serving economy based on human chattel. — Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 5 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for chattel

Recent Examples of Synonyms for chattel

Noun

Black public figures mingle with slave forts and the most vaunted creations of high art.

— Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2026
Also a list of the true names and addresses of all former slaves, along with their actual occupations and 1858 yearly incomes, which, surprising no one, were right on par with the incomes of similar whites.

— George Saunders, New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2026

Definition of slave

Noun

Salceda was charged with one count of murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.

— Iris Kwok, Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 2026
She was given 10 days to surrender her certificate of naturalization, along with any copies in her possession, to government attorneys.

— Antonio María Delgado, Miami Herald, 22 Oct. 2026

Definition of possession

Noun

Born in 1888, Jim Casey spent his life, starting at the tender age of eleven, thinking about how to deliver things more efficiently.

— Marc Levinson, Fortune, 25 Oct. 2026
New York — Brett Smiley was elected mayor of Providence in 2022 on a pledge to build more housing and get things done in Rhode Island’s capital city.

— Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Money, 25 Oct. 2026