MENIAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does menial mean? 

• MENIAL (noun)
  The noun MENIAL has 1 sense:

1. a domestic servant

  Familiarity information: MENIAL used as a noun is very rare.

• MENIAL (adjective)
  The adjective MENIAL has 1 sense:

1. used of unskilled work (especially domestic work)

  Familiarity information: MENIAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MENIAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A domestic servant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("menial" is a kind of...):

retainer; servant (a person working in the service of another (especially in the household))

• MENIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Used of unskilled work (especially domestic work)

Synonyms:

humble; lowly; menial

Similar:

unskilled (not having or showing or requiring special skill or proficiency)

 Context examples 

I was carried through the streets with the rapidity of lightning, said she, and taken into a soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A convenient apartment was provided for her at court: she had a sort of governess appointed to take care of her education, a maid to dress her, and two other servants for menial offices; but the care of me was wholly appropriated to herself.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining-room, I was assured of it; for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendant, who are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial offices.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)