Word.ws English Dictionary

peculiar institution

peculiar institution noun: slavery.

Noun

the peculiar institution (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, euphemistic) 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.1855, Peter Randolph, Illustrations of the 'Peculiar Institution'
    • 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.2001, John C. Inscoe, Appalachians and Race, Introduction, page 3

Origin of peculiar institution

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

Questions about peculiar institution

What does peculiar institution mean?
Peculiar institution means slavery.
What part of speech is peculiar institution?
Peculiar institution is a noun.

Words near peculiar institution in the dictionary

  1. peculations
  2. peculator
  3. peculators
  4. peculia
  5. peculiar
  6. peculiar institution
  7. peculiar motion
  8. peculiar motions
  9. Peculiar People
  10. peculiar velocities
  11. peculiar velocity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peculiar institution (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “peculiar institution.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/peculiar_institution. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.