subserve
Americanverb (used with object)
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to be useful or instrumental in promoting (a purpose, action, etc.).
Light exercise subserves digestion.
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Obsolete. to serve as a subordinate.
verb
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to be helpful or useful to
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obsolete to be subordinate to
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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subservesimple
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subservessimple
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have subservedperfect
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has subservedperfect
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am subservingprogressive
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are subservingprogressive
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is subservingprogressive
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have been subservingperfect progressive
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has been subservingperfect progressive
Past
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subservedsimple
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had subservedperfect
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was subservingprogressive
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were subservingprogressive
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had been subservingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of subserve
1610–20; < Latin subservīre, equivalent to sub- sub- + servīre to serve
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.
See Examples For:
These auditory and reward network pathways likely subserve the mind’s ability to form predictions and expectations during music listening.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2021
Resting-state fMRI has shown that brain networks that subserve motor and even cognitive functions like language, memory and emotion are continuously and dynamically active in the resting brain.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 7, 2017
In a paper published in The Lancet in February 1916, he posited a “physical or chemical change and a break in the links of the chain of neurons which subserve a particular function.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2016
Some years before, Artist Robinson had concluded that the only excuse for painting was to subserve architecture and had applied himself to that problem.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Berlin herbarium is especially rich in more recent collections, and other national herbaria sufficiently extensive to subserve the requirements of the systematic botanist exist at St Petersburg, Vienna, Leiden, Stockholm, Upsala, Copenhagen and Florence.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 3 "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand" by Various
If translated to humans, these findings have important implications for understanding how the hippocampus subserves various cognitive functions that rely on it, such as episodic memory, navigation and imagination.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 3, 2013
It simply subserves, extends, illuminates and liberates Shakespeare's poem.
From Time Magazine Archive
But much Lime is naturally adulterated with other minerals, especially with Manganese, so that its application to most if not to all soils subserves no good end.
From What I know of farming: a series of brief and plain expositions of practical agriculture as an art based upon science by Greeley, Horace
I never could ascertain that it subserves any special function, and the Indians on the Amazon know nothing about its use.”
From The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex Volume II (1st Edition) by Darwin, Charles
It is only right when it subserves the great end of justice; and if it fail to answer this end it is then worse than worthless.
From Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject by Elliott, E. N.
In this way he knows that every interest of the empire, even its integrity, would be best subserved.
From Donahoe's Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 4, April, 1886 Volume 15 (January 1886 - July 1886) by Various
If any thing new is furnished that shall also prove interesting, the end will be subserved.
From Bugle Blasts Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States by Crane, William E.
There were here the best opportunities to employ my talents, since this fruitful land produced in abundance whatever subserved for pleasure and luxury as well as usefulness and comfort.
It is obvious that perfectly different ends are subserved by increasing the aperture and by increasing the power of a telescope.
From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Clerke, Agnes M. (Agnes Mary)
Its function, the end it subserved, determined its value for society—determined whether public opinion should approve or disapprove of it, whether it was a god of the community or the fetich of an individual.
From An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion by Jevons, F. B. (Frank Byron)
Considering the hugging behavior and similar part of the gene, the authors say there’s evidence that “the neural mechanisms subserving social behaviors exist in O. bimaculoides.”
From Washington Post ● Sep. 20, 2018
Lady Carlisle vainly warns him of his danger in subserving the King's designs.
From A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) by Orr, Sutherland, Mrs.
But De Fleuri, like almost every one in the community I believe, had his own private schemes subserving the general good.
From Robert Falconer by MacDonald, George
Unscientific introspection 319:3 Science depicts disease as error, as matter versus Mind, and error reversed as subserving the facts of health.
From Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures by Eddy, Mary Baker
Clearly all that I could do was to invite them to enter on the same road, myself only subserving the humble functions of a signpost.
From Books Condemned to be Burnt by Farrer, James Anson
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.
