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peculiar institution

noun

Etymology

"Peculiar" here does not mean strange. It means "peculiar" (particular) to a certain area, in this case the Southern United States.

Definitions

  1. slavery

    • He became a great drunkard and a great gambler (vices intimately connected with the "peculiar institution,") and was obliged to give up his business.
    • He documents the extensiveness of the peculiar institution's presence throughout the region and establishes a much more realistic context for the emergences of abolitionist sentiments and the various forms it took.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for peculiar institution. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA