Word.ws English Dictionary

bossale

/boʊˈsæl/

bossale noun: 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).

Noun

bossale (plural bossales)

  1. (historical) 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).
    • 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 […]2019, Aline Helg, Slave No More: Self-Liberation before Abolitionism in the Americas, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 76
    Synonyms:
    bozal

Synonyms of bossale

Forms of bossale

pluralbossales
alternative formbossal

Origin of bossale

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

Questions about bossale

What does bossale mean?
Bossale means 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).
What part of speech is bossale?
Bossale is a noun.
How do you pronounce bossale?
Bossale is pronounced /boʊˈsæl/.
What is the plural of bossale?
The plural of bossale is bossales.

Words near bossale in the dictionary

  1. bossa novas
  2. bossaball
  3. bossage
  4. bossages
  5. bossal
  6. bossale
  7. bossales
  8. Bossall
  9. bossals
  10. bossanova
  11. bossanovas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bossale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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