subserve
Americanverb (used with object)
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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
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.
These auditory and reward network pathways likely subserve the mind’s ability to form predictions and expectations during music listening.
From Scientific American
Specific networks of neurons in the brain subserve the formation of human beliefs; neurodegenerative disorders disrupt these networks, leading to distorted beliefs that often have no basis in observable reality.
From Scientific American
They believed the “unusual pressure of time” to work was caused by “the artful and designing men to subserve party purposes.”
From Washington Times
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
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
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.
