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 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Celeste Landress had learned while researching her family history that three Indigenous ancestors had been listed in historical documents as chattel, alongside furniture, houses, and trees.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 Only a racist would dare to defend or dismiss slavery, which stripped Africans of human rights and enslaved them as chattel to pick cotton on Southern plantations. — Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 21 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for chattel

Recent Examples of Synonyms for chattel

Noun

The Christiana Riot, also known as the Christiana Resistance, occurred in Christiana, Pennsylvania, where free Black people and escaped slaves successfully resisted a federal marshal’s raid to capture four fugitive slaves.

— USA Today, USA Today, 25 Aug. 2026
So have other terms considered insensitive, such as master/slave and blackhat/whitehat.

— Jo Mackiewicz, The Conversation, 25 Aug. 2026

Definition of slave

Noun

Geneva rolled up 466 yards and crossed the goal line on six of its 10 possessions.

— Jerry Birchfield, Chicago Tribune, 29 Aug. 2026
The 10-play scoring drive was possible in part because of a 17-yard pass from Hyppolite to Ty Hayes on fourth and 5 that kept the possession alive and moved them into the red zone.

— Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 29 Aug. 2026