menial

American  

[mee-nee-uhl, meen-yuhl] / ˈmi ni əl, ˈmin jəl /

adjective

1. lowly and sometimes degrading.

   menial work.

   Antonyms:

   dignified

2. servile; submissive.

   menial attitudes.

   Synonyms:

   fawning

   Antonyms:

   proud

3. pertaining to or suitable for domestic servants; humble.

   menial furnishings.

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noun

• menials
  plural

1. a domestic servant.

   Synonyms:

   lackey, hireling, underling, attendant

2. a servile person.

menial British  

/ ˈmiːnɪəl /

adjective

1. consisting of or occupied with work requiring little skill, esp domestic duties such as cleaning

2. of, involving, or befitting servants

3. servile

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noun

1. a domestic servant

2. a servile person

Synonym Usage

See servile.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonmenial
  adjective
• unmenial
  adjective
• menially
  adverb
• nonmenially
  adverb
• unmenially
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• menials
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of menial

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English meynyal, from Anglo-French me(i)nial; see meiny, -al ¹

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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).

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

menial menials

The Muslim-majority region, battling some of India's highest unemployment rates, has become increasingly dependent on outsiders to perform jobs that many locals consider menial, including domestic work, agriculture and construction.

From Barron's ● Sep. 14, 2026

Elliot runs around LA doing Erika’s menial tasks until he drops everything at her beck and call.

From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2026

Sometimes he would give her menial tasks to do: answer the phone, show someone to a meeting room, or announce a guest.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

It’s a grisly, funny ritual in which they reveal the self-disgust that their menial jobs have inculcated in them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

Most Scholars who aren’t enslaved work menial jobs—as farmhands or cleaners or stevedores—backbreaking labor for which they’re paid next to nothing.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

If Snyder’s idea of running a franchise was to send menials scurrying for more whiskey ice, the other owners were happy to accept the free if sloppy proceeds.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2020

If our children become accustomed to bossing around their mechanical menials without so much as a please or a thank you, will they turn into adults we can’t stand?

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 19, 2018

“It would be menials who would win this war,” Juliet tells herself just before she’s plucked from the rank-and-file MI5 office staff stationed in the old Wormwood Scrubs prison at the beginning of the war.

From Slate ● Sep. 25, 2018

If schools such as Syracuse and Tennessee are having trouble scraping off the mud, it’s not just because they’ve been dirtied by a few menials.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 2015

Were there menials, I wondered, whom I should never know, never see, waiting behind kitchen doors for the gift of our breakfast?

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

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