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

It’s a fine line because, yes, you may have good reason to be on alert if you hear more stories of your mother giving a neighbor thousands of dollars for doing a relatively menial job.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

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

Artificial intelligence is eating into some of the menial tasks traditionally performed by interns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

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

From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2026

He’d been with the organization for a decade by now and done a lot of its more menial chores along the way.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

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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