SERVITUDE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does servitude mean? 

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

1. state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor imposed as punishment

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• SERVITUDE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor imposed as punishment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

penal servitude

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

bondage; slavery; thraldom; thrall; thralldom (the state of being under the control of another person)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "servitude"):

villainage; villeinage (the legal status or condition of servitude of a villein or feudal serf)

 Context examples 

Then the "$8.00" began to smoulder under his lids again, and he returned himself to servitude.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude to Wolf Larsen.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

This person appears to have been none other than Beddington, the famous forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, had only recently emerged from a five years’ spell of penal servitude.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Remember, Watson that though we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years’ penal servitude unless we can establish his innocence.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He added, how I had endeavoured to persuade him, that in my own and other countries, the Yahoos acted as the governing, rational animal, and held the Houyhnhnms in servitude; that he observed in me all the qualities of a Yahoo, only a little more civilized by some tincture of reason, which, however, was in a degree as far inferior to the Houyhnhnm race, as the Yahoos of their country were to me; that, among other things, I mentioned a custom we had of castrating Houyhnhnms when they were young, in order to render them tame; that the operation was easy and safe; that it was no shame to learn wisdom from brutes, as industry is taught by the ant, and building by the swallow (for so I translate the word lyhannh, although it be a much larger fowl); that this invention might be practised upon the younger Yahoos here, which besides rendering them tractable and fitter for use, would in an age put an end to the whole species, without destroying life; that in the mean time the Houyhnhnms should be exhorted to cultivate the breed of asses, which, as they are in all respects more valuable brutes, so they have this advantage, to be fit for service at five years old, which the others are not till twelve.

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

The American, Abe Slaney, was condemned to death at the winter assizes at Norwich, but his penalty was changed to penal servitude in consideration of mitigating circumstances, and the certainty that Hilton Cubitt had fired the first shot.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud), I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I made my decision.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)