Bossale

//boʊˈsæl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A black African-born enslaved person in a French (or sometimes other European) colony, especially Haiti (as opposed to a slave born in the colony). historical

    "In Louisiana, French colonists relied on bossales later than elsewhere as they first imposed the slavery system on Amerindians only. The first slave ship carrying Africans arrived in 1719 […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
bozal

Example

More examples

"In Louisiana, French colonists relied on bossales later than elsewhere as they first imposed the slavery system on Amerindians only. The first slave ship carrying Africans arrived in 1719 […]"

Etymology

From French bossale, from Spanish bozal (“wild, untamed, raw; born in Africa and recently enslaved in a colony”). Doublet of bozal and bosal.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.