subserve
Americanverb (used with object)
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subserves,
present (3rd person singular)
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subserved,
past participle, past
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subserving
present participle
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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
In The Trial, setting and camera steadily subserve the subject.
From Time Magazine Archive
Like many another philosopher before and since, in his zeal to subserve the general interest he forgot himself.
From Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume I (of 2) A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings by Wiliam Cabell Bruce
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
Fair dealing and kindliness, prudence and economy in order to procure the comforts and simpler luxuries of life, reading and knowledge for those uses which wisdom subserves, constituted the real essence of his teaching.
From Benjamin Franklin by John T. (John Torrey) Morse
The question of immunity is discussed elsewhere, and it is sufficient merely to indicate the chief means by which the blood subserves this essential protective mechanism.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 1 "Bisharin" to "Bohea" by Various
The real answer to the problem lies in our gradually dawning perception of the high purposes which pain subserves.
From Gloria Crucis addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 by J. H. (Joseph Hugh) Beibitz
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
We cannot but infer, from the pre-Adamic state of our world, that it must have subserved other purposes than to sustain its present inhabitants.
From The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences by Edward Hitchcock
The end is fairly though not cheaply subserved.
From Glances at Europe In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. by Horace Greeley
No political purpose was to be subserved by this order of the Cincinnati, save in so far as the members pledged to one another their determination to promote and cherish the union between the states.
From The Critical Period of American History by John Fiske
If this involves the surrender or postponement of private interests, and the abandonment of local advantages, compensation will be found in the assurance that thus the common interest is subserved, and the general welfare advanced.
From A Letter to Grover Cleveland On His False Inaugural Address, The Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude Of The People by Lysander Spooner
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
But no man is permitted to infringe any one of the great rules of morality and justice, for the sake of subserving the interests of his party.
From Presidential Candidates: containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860 by D. W. Bartlett
And if some accuse me of subserving the cause of Catholic reaction, others perhaps, the official Catholics....
From Tragic Sense Of Life by J. E. Crawford (John Ernest Crawford) Flitch
Here is something distinctly and clearly subserving that making of mankind upon which all sane social and political proposals must ultimately base themselves.
From Mankind in the Making by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
You fill with the dead matter of your construction the places where assimilation ought to have its perfect work, building by a life-process, self-extending, and subserving the whole.
From Weighed and Wanting by George MacDonald
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