subserve
Americanverb (used with object)
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subserves,
present (3rd person singular)
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subserved,
past participle, past
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subserving
present participle
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to be useful or instrumental in promoting (a purpose, action, etc.).
Light exercise subserves digestion.
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Obsolete. to serve as a subordinate.
verb
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to be helpful or useful to
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obsolete to be subordinate to
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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subservesimple
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subservessimple
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have subservedperfect
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has subservedperfect
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am subservingprogressive
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are subservingprogressive
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is subservingprogressive
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have been subservingperfect progressive
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has been subservingperfect progressive
Past
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subservedsimple
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had subservedperfect
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was subservingprogressive
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were subservingprogressive
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had been subservingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of subserve
1610–20; < Latin subservīre, equivalent to sub- sub- + servīre to serve
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
These auditory and reward network pathways likely subserve the mind’s ability to form predictions and expectations during music listening.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2021
Resting-state fMRI has shown that brain networks that subserve motor and even cognitive functions like language, memory and emotion are continuously and dynamically active in the resting brain.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 7, 2017
In a paper published in The Lancet in February 1916, he posited a “physical or chemical change and a break in the links of the chain of neurons which subserve a particular function.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2016
Some years before, Artist Robinson had concluded that the only excuse for painting was to subserve architecture and had applied himself to that problem.
From Time Magazine Archive
Here the vanities of his pagan training subserve true thought.
From The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire by T. R. (Terrot Reaveley) Glover
If translated to humans, these findings have important implications for understanding how the hippocampus subserves various cognitive functions that rely on it, such as episodic memory, navigation and imagination.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 3, 2013
It simply subserves, extends, illuminates and liberates Shakespeare's poem.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now, not all desires are religious; and the question, which is purely a question of fact, arises whether the desires which fetichism subserves are religious.
From An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion by F. B. (Frank Byron) Jevons
Where government aims at and subserves this end it is a blessing.
From The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 by Aaron Walker
But they answer that, so far from this, it subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of our Lord's loving kindness and mediation.
From An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman
The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is unorganized, inert, and individually impotent.
From Glances at Europe In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. by Horace Greeley
The Inquisition exercised a censorship over everything designed for publication, and unless it subserved the interest of that fiendish institution, it was made to do so, or it was suppressed.
From Aztec Land by Maturin Murray Ballou
These battles he read of every morning subserved no end: the cause stood motionless; only so many blue-coated machines rendered useless: but behind the machines—what?
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863 by Various
Old ideas linger after they have subserved their purposes.
From The Arena Volume 18, No. 93, August, 1897 by Various
It is obvious that perfectly different ends are subserved by increasing the aperture and by increasing the power of a telescope.
From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
Considering the hugging behavior and similar part of the gene, the authors say there’s evidence that “the neural mechanisms subserving social behaviors exist in O. bimaculoides.”
From Washington Post ● Sep. 20, 2018
Clearly all that I could do was to invite them to enter on the same road, myself only subserving the humble functions of a signpost.
From Books Condemned to be Burnt by James Anson Farrer
The soldier might be a roving knight, and the priest a martyr and a saint; but both alike were subserving the interests of that commerce which formed the only solid basis of the colony.
From Pioneers of France in the New World by Francis Parkman
But De Fleuri, like almost every one in the community I believe, had his own private schemes subserving the general good.
From Robert Falconer by George MacDonald
It has subserved, and is now subserving, a great and beneficent end.
From The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
