servile
[sur-vil, -vahyl]
- slavishly submissive or obsequious; fawning: servile flatterers.
- characteristic of, proper to, or customary for slaves; abject: servile obedience.
- yielding slavishly; truckling (usually followed by to).
- extremely imitative, especially in the arts; lacking in originality.
- being in slavery; oppressed.
- of, relating to, or involving slaves or servants.
- of or relating to a condition of servitude or property ownership in which a person is held as a slave or as partially enslaved: medieval rebellions against servile laws.
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Origin of servile
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin servīlis, equivalent to serv- (stem of servīre to be a slave) + -īlis -ile
Synonyms
See more synonyms for servile on Thesaurus.com1, 2. cringing, sycophantic. Servile, menial, obsequious, slavish characterize one who behaves like a slave or an inferior. Servile suggests cringing, fawning, and abject submission: servile responses to questions. Menial applies to that which is considered undesirable drudgery: the most menial tasks. Obsequious implies the ostentatious subordination of oneself to the wishes of another, either from fear or from hope of gain: an obsequious waiter. Slavish stresses the dependence and labori-ous toil of one who follows or obeys without question: slavish attentiveness to orders. 2. mean, base, low.
Antonyms
1. aggressive. 2. exalted.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for servile
Contemporary Examples
Where Don is confident and arrogant, Bob is servile and accommodating.
They are not permitted to speak of that period of colonial history when they were ruled as a servile caste by a Tutsi elite.
In memory, he was reviled as a servile race traitor, a cringing sycophant to white wealth and power.
I found that I reverted to a housewife stereotype as servile as my grandma.
Historical Examples
My brother was servile; he has attached himself to the retinue of a wealthy Baroness.
City of Endless NightMilo Hastings
Base hearts it only hardens, making those who were mean and servile, mean and proud.
Self-HelpSamuel Smiles
Art so followed is the most servile indolence in which life can be wasted.
Modern Painters Volume I (of V)John Ruskin
The servile spouters in the land are as plenty as summer flies.
The Book of KhalidAmeen Rihani
Now both these are branches of the servile or ministerial art.
StatesmanPlato
servile
- obsequious or fawning in attitude or behaviour; submissive
- of or suitable for a slave
- existing in or relating to a state of slavery
- (when postpositive, foll by to) submitting or obedient
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Word Origin
C14: from Latin servīlis, from servus slave
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 servile
adj.
late 14c., from Latin servilis "of a slave" (as in Servile Wars, name given to the slave revolts in the late Roman Republic), also "slavish, servile," from servus "slave" (see serve (v.)). Earliest sense was legal, servile work being forbidden on the Sabbath; sense of "cringing, fawning" first recorded c.1600.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper