menial
Americanadjective
adjective
-
consisting of or occupied with work requiring little skill, esp domestic duties such as cleaning
-
of, involving, or befitting servants
-
servile
noun
-
a domestic servant
-
a servile person
Synonym Usage
See servile.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of menial
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English meynyal, from Anglo-French me(i)nial; see meiny, -al 1
Explanation
A menial task is anything that takes very little training, skill, or talent. Some people find it relaxing to do the menial chore of folding laundry. Go figure. The adjective menial comes from an Old French word, mensie, which means “household.” Many chores that get labeled as menial are domestic, but other jobs outside of the home are sometimes also considered menial: stuffing envelopes, data processing, repetitive assembly line work, brain surgery (OK, that last one is not considered menial; we were just checking to see if you were awake).
Vocabulary lists containing menial
The Handmaid's Tale
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Born a Crime
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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.
Menial tasks and low wages, most of which will go straight into the family pot, seem to be his lot in life.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 21, 2021
Menial piecework tasks, parceled out through apps that force workers into 12-hour days in the hopes they can eke out a living through a lifetime of endless servility.
From Salon • Jan. 7, 2020
It's the only room I can keep locked, and which my Menial never enters in my absence.
From Category Phoenix by Ellanby, Boyd
"Menial tasks is good," said "Dye," ruefully eyeing the baskets piled high with coal.
From A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" by Doubleday, Russell
Mayhem, Laws relative to it, 49 Menial Servants, Their Morals corrupted, how, 154, 155 Metals, Dealers in proposed to be regulated, 108, 540, 549 Metropolis, vide London.
From A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention by Colquhoun, Patrick
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.
