rabeit macht frei
slave
c.1290, "person who is the property of another," from O.Fr. esclave, from M.L. Sclavus "slave," originally "Slav," so called because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples. Applied to devices from 1904, especially those which are controlled by others (cf. slave jib in sailing, similarly of locomotives, flash bulbs, amplifiers). The verb meaning "work like a slave" is first recorded 1719. Slavery is from 1551; slavish "servilely imitative" is from 1753. O.E. Wealh "Briton" also began to be used in the sense of "serf, slave" c.850; and Skt. dasa-, which can mean "slave," is apparently connected to dasyu- "pre-Aryan inhabitant of India." More common O.E. words for slave were ?¢®eow (related to ?¢®eowian "to serve") and ?¢®r?il (see thrall). The Slavic words for "slave" (Rus. rab, Serbo-Croatian rob, O.C.S. rabu) are from O.Slav. *orbu, from the PIE base *orbh- (also source of orphan) the ground sense of which seems to be "thing that changes allegiance" (in the case of the slave, from himself to his master). The Slavic word is also the source of robot. ///