Simon Legree

[ li-gree ]

noun

1. the brutal plantation owner in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin who abuses and murders several enslaved people.
2. any harsh, merciless master:

   Our math teacher is a Simon Legree.

Legree, Simon

1. The cruel overseer and owner of slaves in Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe . Though the book describes conditions in the slaveholding states of the South, Legree, the most vicious character in it, is from New England .