1. Of or pertaining to a servant or slave; befitting a servant or a slave; proceeding from dependence; hence,
meanly submissive; slavish; mean; cringing; fawning; as, servile flattery; servile fear; servile obedience.
She must bend the servile knee.
Thomson.
Fearing dying pays death servile breath.
Shak. 2. Held in subjection; dependent; enslaved.
Even fortune rules no more, O servile land!
Pope. 3. (Gram.) (a) Not belonging to the original root; as, a servile letter. (b) Not itself sounded, but serving
to lengthen the preceeding vowel, as e in tune.
Servile
(Serv"ile), n. (Gram.) An element which forms no part of the original root; — opposed to radical.
Servilely
(Serv"ile*ly), adv. In a servile manner; slavishly.
Servileness
(Serv"ile*ness), n. Quality of being servile; servility.
Servility
(Ser*vil"i*ty) n. [Cf. F. servilité.] The quality or state of being servile; servileness.
To be a queen in bondage is more vile
Than is a slave in base servility.
Shak. Serving
(Serv"ing), a. & n. from Serve.
Serving board (Naut.), a flat piece of wood used in serving ropes. — Serving maid, a female servant; a
maidservant. — Serving mallet (Naut.), a wooden instrument shaped like a mallet, used in serving
ropes. — Serving man, a male servant, or attendant; a manservant. — Serving stuff (Naut.), small
lines for serving ropes.
Servite
(Serv"ite) n. [It. servita.] (R.C.Ch.) One of the order of the Religious Servants of the Holy
Virgin, founded in Florence in 1223.
Servitor
(Serv"i*tor) n. [L., fr. servire to serve: cf. F. serviteur.]
1. One who serves; a servant; an attendant; one who acts under another; a follower or adherent.
Your trusty and most valiant servitor.
Shak. 2. (Univ. of Oxford, Eng.) An undergraduate, partly supported by the college funds, whose duty it formerly
was to wait at table. A servitor corresponded to a sizar in Cambridge and Dublin universities.
Servitorship
(Serv"i*tor*ship), n. The office, rank, or condition of a servitor. Boswell.
Servitude
(Serv"i*tude) n. [L. servitudo: cf. F. servitude.]
1. The state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a master; the condition of being bound to service; the
condition of a slave; slavery; bondage; hence, a state of slavish dependence.
You would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude.
Shak.
A splendid servitude; . . . for he that rises up early, and goe to bed late, only to receive addresses, is
really as much abridged in his freedom as he that waits to present one.
South.
