Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - emancipate

(emancipates, emancipating, emancipated) If people are emancipated, they are freed from unpleasant or unfair social, political, or legal restrictions. (FORMAL) Catholics were emancipated in 1792... That war preserved the Union and emancipated the slaves... ...the newly emancipated state... = liberate VERB: be V-ed, V n, V-ed • emancipation ...the emancipation of women. N-UNCOUNT: oft N of n