Definition of "manumit" [man•u•mit]

• To free from slavery or bondage; emancipate. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It is evident, that others cannot "manumit" for them."
• "The freeing of enslaved persons – manumission – was not regulated by statute in South Carolina until 1712, when the colonial legislature decreed that slaveholders or the colonial governor or provincial council could manumit enslaved persons for good cause."
• "Under Virginian colonial law, a slaveholder could manumit slaves by a special act of the legislature."