serf

[surf]

noun

1. a person in a condition of feudal servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another.

   Synonyms: peasant, villein, vassal

2. a worker who is underpaid, overworked, or otherwise exploited.

   Today's service-sector serfs are fighting for the most basic of job perks: a decent paycheck, a stable schedule, and paid time off when they are sick.

3. Obsolete.,  a person held in bondage or slavery.

serf

/ sɜːf /

noun

1. (esp in medieval Europe) an unfree person, esp one bound to the land. If his lord sold the land, the serf was passed on to the new landlord

serf

1. Under feudalism, a peasant bound to his lord's land and subject to his lord's will, but entitled to his lord's protection.

Other Word Forms

• serfdom noun
• serflike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of serf¹

First recorded in 1475–85; from Old French, from Latin servus “slave”

Word History and Origins

Origin of serf¹

C15: from Old French, from Latin servus a slave; see _serve

Example Sentences

They want illiterate, groveling serfs, who live in fear and don’t stick around too long.

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Speaking to serfs was not something their mother encouraged.

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Our 19th century wars of expansion, official and not, won us territories where Latin Americans lived — Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, but especially Mexicans — that we ended up treating as little better than serfs.

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Driven by the ideological and instrumental dictates of gangster capitalism, the logic of the market has reduced students to consumers, faculty to managed labor serfs and knowledge to a commodity.

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Some of the Russian coverage has taken a mocking tone, with pro-Kremlin NTV saying Trump treated America's allies in Europe as "serfs" who only respond with "moaning".

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