• manumit •
Pronunciation: mæn-yê-mit • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: To emancipate, free, release from slavery, bondage, or other forms of servitude.
Notes: This word is used for granting freedom on a small scale, involving individuals. Emancipation is used more often for the same action on a large scale. The action noun for this word is manumission. It comes with active and passive personal nouns, manumitter and manumiss "manumitted slave, freedman". The active adjective is manumissive and the passive one, manumisable.
In Play: 'Small scale', of course, is a relative measure: "William Claiborne's will directed General Robert E. Lee, executor, to manumit about 200 slaves within five years of his death in 1857." I can see many possibilities for the figurative use of this word: "Wiley Fox promised June McBride to manumit her from her credit card debt if she married him."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed directly from Latin manumittere "to set free, free a slave" from the original phrase 'manus emittere' "to release from one's hands, power, control". Manus originally meant "hand", but just as, "The matter is in her hands" means "under her control", so manus came to mean "control". It was inherited from PIE man- "hand", which also went into the making of Greek mane "hand" and German Vormund "guardian", from Proto-Germanic (and Old English) mund "hand". Emittere comprises e(x) "(away) from" + mittere "to send". Mittere seems built on PIE meit-/moit- "to exchange", visible in Sanskrit methati "to exchange", Greek moitos "retribution", Russian mest' "vengeance", though this etymology faces many semantic problems.
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