Chattel
noun
Something that a person owns other than land or buildings.
Furniture, cars, stocks, and bonds are considered chattels.
Often appears as...
- personal chattel
- chattel mortgage
Usage tips
Formal
Academic
noun
A human who is owned as property by another human.
In the past, slaves were considered chattel by their owners.
Often appears as...
- human chattel
- chattel slavery
Usage tips
Formal, Disapproving
Historical
noun
Something that a person owns other than land or buildings.
Furniture, cars, stocks, and bonds are considered chattels.
Often appears as...
- personal chattel
- chattel mortgage
Usage tips
Formal
Academic
noun
A human who is owned as property by another human.
In the past, slaves were considered chattel by their owners.
Often appears as...
- human chattel
- chattel slavery
Usage tips
Formal, Disapproving
Historical
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Legal Context
Often used in legal situations to discuss personal property or assets.
The will stated that all chattel should be divided among her children.
Pro Tip 2/3Excludes Real Estate
Remember, chattel does not include land or buildings, it's moveable property.
Her jewelry collection was her most valuable chattel.
Pro Tip 3/3Secured Loans
Chattel can be used as security for a loan, known as a chattel mortgage.
He took out a chattel mortgage on his boat to finance his business.
Pro Tip 1/3Legal Context
Often used in legal situations to discuss personal property or assets.
The will stated that all chattel should be divided among her children.
Pro Tip 2/3Excludes Real Estate
Remember, chattel does not include land or buildings, it's moveable property.
Her jewelry collection was her most valuable chattel.
Pro Tip 3/3Secured Loans
Chattel can be used as security for a loan, known as a chattel mortgage.
He took out a chattel mortgage on his boat to finance his business.
Pro Tip 1/3Legal Context
Often used in legal situations to discuss personal property or assets.
The will stated that all chattel should be divided among her children.
Pro Tip 2/3Excludes Real Estate
Remember, chattel does not include land or buildings, it's moveable property.
Her jewelry collection was her most valuable chattel.
Pro Tip 3/3Secured Loans
Chattel can be used as security for a loan, known as a chattel mortgage.
He took out a chattel mortgage on his boat to finance his business.
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Video examples
Shadow-Chasing Dogs PIPE...
and because I catch her by surprise you see the black key and turn around and said you came from you yeah I came from me but the purpose says you don't chase the chattel right look how she's act reading me now how she is evaluating me now so what she did right now is it came all the way here and look
Video examples
The breathtaking courage...
Born into chattel slavery, Araminta, or Minty, was the fifth of nine children. Two of Minty’s older sisters were sold to a chain gang. Even as a small child, Minty was hired out to different owners, who subjected her to whippings and punishment.
Video examples
The lie that invented...
and locking them into our particularly vicious brand of chattel slavery, and laws that gave even the poorest white people benefits, not big benefits in material terms but the right to not be enslaved for life,
Video examples
Leopard Kill Captured...
recently killed chattel stag the jackal must work quickly to make the most of this chance the leopard could chase him off the kill at any moment
Video examples
Shadow-Chasing Dogs PIPE...
and because I catch her by surprise you see the black key and turn around and said you came from you yeah I came from me but the purpose says you don't chase the chattel right look how she's act reading me now how she is evaluating me now so what she did right now is it came all the way here and look
Video examples
The breathtaking courage...
Born into chattel slavery, Araminta, or Minty, was the fifth of nine children. Two of Minty’s older sisters were sold to a chain gang. Even as a small child, Minty was hired out to different owners, who subjected her to whippings and punishment.
Video examples
The lie that invented...
and locking them into our particularly vicious brand of chattel slavery, and laws that gave even the poorest white people benefits, not big benefits in material terms but the right to not be enslaved for life,
Video examples
Leopard Kill Captured...
recently killed chattel stag the jackal must work quickly to make the most of this chance the leopard could chase him off the kill at any moment
Example 1 of 4
Quote examples
Lysander Spooner
American Philosopher
A man who is without capital, and who, by prohibitions upon banking, is practically forbidden to hire any, is in a condition elevated but one degree above that of a chattel slave. He may live; but he can live only as the servant of others; compelled to perform such labor, and to perform it at such prices, as they may see fit to dictate.
Quote examples
Greg Grandin
American Historian
Starting in the early 1800s, Southerners in the United States began to defend slavery as their 'peculiar institution,' and northerners didn't mind, since the phrase suggested that chattel bondage was quarantined from the rest of the nation: that it was, or soon would be, a relic of its past and would not define its future.
Quote examples
William Lloyd Garrison
American Journalist
I am accused of using hard language. I admit the charge. I have not been able to find a soft word to describe villainy or to identify the perpetrator of it. The man who makes a chattel of his brother - what is he? The man who keeps back the hire of his laborers by fraud - what is he?
Quote examples
Jeffrey Kluger
American Writer
Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel, our family members and our laborers, our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them, admire them and abuse them. And, of course, we cook and eat them.
Quote examples
Clive Sinclair
British Author
Many years ago, when I lived in the mini-Siberia they call East Anglia, I was awakened in the early hours by the sound of a pantechnicon being loaded. Peeping through the curtains, I observed the grocer doing a runner with all his chattels and his family.
Quote examples
Kehinde Wiley
American Artist
There is - and always will be - the legacy of chattel slavery in this nation, an obsession with racial and gender differences, but I think that, at its best, this nation is capable of creating standards for itself and reaching towards those standards.
Quote examples
Frederick Douglass
American Author
Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
Quote examples
Ross Douthat
American Author
America's gravest moral evil, chattel slavery, was defeated by an authoritarian president in a religious civil war, not by proceduralism or constitutional debate.
Quote examples
Jeanne Phillips
American Writer
Women were once considered chattel, and slavery was regarded as sanctioned in the Bible. However, western society grew to recognize that neither was just.
Quote examples
John Bercow
British Politician
Sally is my wife, but not my chattel or my property.
Quote examples
Lysander Spooner
American Philosopher
A man who is without capital, and who, by prohibitions upon banking, is practically forbidden to hire any, is in a condition elevated but one degree above that of a chattel slave. He may live; but he can live only as the servant of others; compelled to perform such labor, and to perform it at such prices, as they may see fit to dictate.
Quote examples
Greg Grandin
American Historian
Starting in the early 1800s, Southerners in the United States began to defend slavery as their 'peculiar institution,' and northerners didn't mind, since the phrase suggested that chattel bondage was quarantined from the rest of the nation: that it was, or soon would be, a relic of its past and would not define its future.
Quote examples
William Lloyd Garrison
American Journalist
I am accused of using hard language. I admit the charge. I have not been able to find a soft word to describe villainy or to identify the perpetrator of it. The man who makes a chattel of his brother - what is he? The man who keeps back the hire of his laborers by fraud - what is he?
Quote examples
Jeffrey Kluger
American Writer
Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel, our family members and our laborers, our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them, admire them and abuse them. And, of course, we cook and eat them.
Quote examples
Clive Sinclair
British Author
Many years ago, when I lived in the mini-Siberia they call East Anglia, I was awakened in the early hours by the sound of a pantechnicon being loaded. Peeping through the curtains, I observed the grocer doing a runner with all his chattels and his family.
Quote examples
Kehinde Wiley
American Artist
There is - and always will be - the legacy of chattel slavery in this nation, an obsession with racial and gender differences, but I think that, at its best, this nation is capable of creating standards for itself and reaching towards those standards.
Quote examples
Frederick Douglass
American Author
Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
Quote examples
Ross Douthat
American Author
America's gravest moral evil, chattel slavery, was defeated by an authoritarian president in a religious civil war, not by proceduralism or constitutional debate.
Quote examples
Jeanne Phillips
American Writer
Women were once considered chattel, and slavery was regarded as sanctioned in the Bible. However, western society grew to recognize that neither was just.
Quote examples
John Bercow
British Politician
Sally is my wife, but not my chattel or my property.
Example 1 of 10
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