slaver

The word slaver has historically been used to refer to a person who participated in the enslavement of people, or, more specifically, to refer to a ship used to transport enslaved people.

Many of the terms historically used in the context of slavery serve to justify or normalize the practice and are now often avoided and replaced with other terms that better reflect and emphasize the humanity of the people who were held captive and forced to labor. Notably, the term enslaved people is now widely used instead of slaves.

In parallel with this change, the word enslaver is now often preferred over slaver because it emphasizes such a person’s active participation and complicity in the enslavement of people. Enslaver is also preferred over other once common terms, such as slave owner (which suggests that a person can actually be property) or master (which can imply that such a person has inherent power or authority that justifies their enslavement of people).

Unrelated meaning

A completely different and unrelated sense of slaver means the same thing as slobber or drool (all three of these words can be used as verbs or nouns). This sense of slaver is much older and derives from a word related to slobber.

As a verb, it’s sometimes used figuratively to mean the same thing as fawn, as in Can you believe the way their fans slaver/fawn over those bands?