- 1學徒契約、契約文書（indentured servant：契約工、契約僕役；與奴隸不同）
An indenture is a formal written contract, especially in the past. The kind people still talk about bound a young apprentice to a master for a set number of years: you work, they teach you the trade, and you are not free to walk away. The word can also mean the act of making that contract. There is a harder history beside the workshop one. Indentured servants — often poor people or migrants — signed away years of labour to pay for a voyage or a debt. They were not quite enslaved, because the years were meant to end, but for that time they were far from free, and plenty never got the life they were promised. Today you meet the word in history, law, and museums, not in "I got a new job." The verb is rarer: to indenture someone is to bind them by such a contract. The name is physical. The contract was written out twice on one sheet, then cut apart with a wavy, tooth-like edge. Later, if anyone argued about the wording, you fitted the two pieces together. If they matched, the papers were the real pair.
組成From Anglo-Norman endenture, from Old French endenteure, from endenter ("to dent"). Named for the irregular dent-shaped cut that proved the two halves of the contract were a matching pair.
同家族的字
- indentto cut a notch; the same "dent" idea in the cut edge
- indentedhaving those cuts or bites along an edge
- indenturedbound by this kind of contract
- indentationa notch or jagged cut — the mark the old contract was named for
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
indenturenoun/ɪnˈdɛn.ʃɝ/
- 1
lawA contract which binds a person to work for another, under specified conditions, for a specified time (often as an apprentice).
- And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free.
- 2
lawA contract relating to lending (typically for issuing a bond), a real estate transaction, or a bankruptcy that imposes additional conditions on one or both parties.
- 3
lawA document, written as duplicates separated by indentations, specifying either of the above contracts.
- Walking the street very hungry, and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly, sign'd the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to acquaint his friends what was become of him.
- It was the critical moment of Oliver’s fate. If the inkstand had been where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen into it, and signed the indentures, and Oliver would have been straightway hurried off.
- 4
An indentation; a recess.
- The narrow windows, flanked by deep indentures into the walls, seemed formed rather to exclude than to admit the cheerful light; and the heavy and gloomy appearance of the thunder-sky added still farther to the obscurity.
indentureverb/ɪnˈdɛn.ʃɝ/
- 1
lawTo bind a person under such a contract.
- 2
To indent; to make hollows, notches, or wrinkles in; to furrow.
- Though age may creep on, and indenture the brow.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。