corvée

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: unpaid labor that a feudal tenant was required to perform for a lord, often in place of rent or tax

   The peasants owed several days of corvée each year on the lord's roads and fields.

2. 2
   noun

   compulsory labor exacted by a government for public works, especially road building

   The administration used the corvée to compel villagers to repair highways without pay.

Borrowed from French corvée, from Late Latin conrogata, 'collected or summoned together,' based on Latin conrogare, 'to call together.' The word developed from a summoned communal service into the compulsory unpaid labor owed to a lord or state.

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