Did you know?
To emancipate someone (including oneself) is to free them from restraint, control, or the power of another, and especially to free them from bondage or enslavement. It follows that the noun emancipation refers to the act or practice of emancipating. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, for example, ordered that enslaved people living in the Confederate states be released from the bonds of ownership and made free people. It took more than two years for news of the proclamation to reach the enslaved communities in the distant state of Texas. The arrival of the news on June 19 (of 1865) is now celebrated as a national holiday—Juneteenth or Emancipation Day.
Examples of emancipation in a Sentence
Eugene Robinson, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2026
Black History Month grew out of an effort to honor the most important people in the history of Black emancipation in the United States, according to the ASALH.
—Jalen Williams, Freep.com, 31 Jan. 2026
Her daughter Frances Bean eventually files for emancipation.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 28 Jan. 2026
Yet even as Washington’s will was published hundreds of times in pamphlets and newspapers and the nation learned of its remarkable emancipation provisions, few Americans highlighted it in the way Allen had.
—John Garrison Marks, Time, 23 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for emancipation
Cite this Entry
“Emancipation.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emancipation. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
emancipation
noun
Legal Definition
emancipation
noun
