slave state

noun

any of the southern states in which slavery was legal prior to the American Civil War

• Ant: ↑free state

• Hypernyms: ↑American state

• Part Holonyms: ↑Confederacy, ↑Confederate States, ↑Confederate States of America, ↑South, ↑Dixie, ↑Dixieland

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noun

1. : a state of the United States in which Negro slavery was legal until the Civil War — compare free soil

2. : a nation subjected to totalitarian rule

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1. any state, nation, etc., where slavery is legal or officially condoned.

2. Slave States, U.S. Hist. the states that permitted slavery between 1820 and 1860: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

[1800-10, Amer.]

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slave state,

1. one of the Slave States.

2. a country ruled by absolute authority; dictatorship.

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(also slave state) n. historical any of the Southern states of the U.S. in which slavery was legal before the Civil War

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noun, pl ⋯ states [count]

: a state of the U.S. in which slavery was legal until the American Civil War

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slave state [slave state] noun

(in the US) any state that had slaves before and during the ↑American Civil War. The term was especially important when new states were established as either free states or slave states, as in the ↑Missouri Compromise. Most slave states were in the South, but several northern states had slaves early in their history.