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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
Literary Hub, 5 June 2025
After all, abstraction had been in the service of spiritual liberation and social emancipation since its inception, and had always appeared in opposition to the totally reified world of Duchamp’s readymade.
—Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Artforum, 1 June 2025
At the Baltimore convention that renominated Lincoln, Raymond wrote the resolutions that put emancipation at the center of the 1864 campaign:
As slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion . . .
—Matthew Karp, Harpers Magazine, 29 Apr. 2025
The Art Of Joy follows a woman born into modest circumstances in Sicily in 1900, who goes on navigate life in a convent, and then carves herself out a place in aristocratic household achieving happiness and emancipation in the process.
—Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 7 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for emancipation
Cite this Entry
“Emancipation.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emancipation. Accessed 26 Jun. 2025.
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