menial
[mee-nee-uhl, meen-yuhl]
- lowly and sometimes degrading: menial work.
- servile; submissive: menial attitudes.
- pertaining to or suitable for domestic servants; humble: menial furnishings.
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- a domestic servant.
- a servile person.
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Origin of menial
Synonyms
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
humdrum, boring, base, low, routine, mean, common, abject, degrading, dull, fawning, humble, ignoble, ignominious, obeisant, obsequious, servile, slavish, sorry, subservientExamples from the Web for menial
Contemporary Examples
Although I hated the menial tasks the job required, it gave me a window into the power of local government.
Or refusing to take on menial work, such as working in a café for example, and instead whining at your parents to pay your rent?
Charles Murray worries that we've made it too easy to be a menial worker.
Prosperity created a situation familiar to Americans and Northern Europeans: some jobs became too menial for Russians.
People get tired of applying for menial jobs and the changes.
Historical Examples
They may be had tied in bundles by the employers of menial labor.
The Call of the Twentieth CenturyDavid Starr Jordan
He is going to work, to be a menial, to earn a living by honest means?
The Book of KhalidAmeen Rihani
He was doorkeeper to the household, so he began on the duties of his menial position.
The ChristianHall Caine
And there were other things, and worse,—menial services of the lowest kind.
Dr. SevierGeorge W. Cable
Many would scoff, and call it menial Let them, if they will.
Arthur O'LearyCharles James Lever
menial
- consisting of or occupied with work requiring little skill, esp domestic duties such as cleaning
- of, involving, or befitting servants
- servile
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- a domestic servant
- a servile person
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Word Origin
C14: from Anglo-Norman meignial, from Old French meinie household. See meiny
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for menial
adj.
late 14c., "pertaining to a household," from Anglo-French meignial, from Old French mesnie "household," earlier mesnede, from Vulgar Latin *mansionata, from Latin mansionem "dwelling" (see mansion). Sense of "lowly, humble, suited to a servant" is recorded by 1670s.
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n.
"domestic servant," late 14c., meynyal; see menial (adj.).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper