SUBSERVIENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does subservient mean? 

• SUBSERVIENT (adjective)
  The adjective SUBSERVIENT has 3 senses:

1. compliant and obedient to authority

2. serving or acting as a means or aid

3. abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant

  Familiarity information: SUBSERVIENT used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUBSERVIENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Compliant and obedient to authority

Context example:

editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones

Similar:

subordinate (subject or submissive to authority or the control of another)

Derivation:

subservientness (in a subservient state)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Serving or acting as a means or aid

Synonyms:

implemental; instrumental; subservient

Context example:

instrumental in solving the crime

Similar:

helpful (providing assistance or serving a useful function)

Derivation:

subserve (be helpful or useful)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant

Synonyms:

slavish; submissive; subservient

Context example:

she has become submissive and subservient

Similar:

servile (submissive or fawning in attitude or behavior)

Derivation:

subservience (abject or cringing submissiveness)

subservientness (in a subservient state)

 Context examples 

I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“An’ ’ow yer feelin’ now, sir?” he asked, with the subservient smirk which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

In those days, climbing up the iron ladders out the pit of stifling heat, he had often caught glimpses of the passengers, in cool white, doing nothing but enjoy themselves, under awnings spread to keep the sun and wind away from them, with subservient stewards taking care of their every want and whim, and it had seemed to him that the realm in which they moved and had their being was nothing else than paradise.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“There are three methods, by which a man may rise to be chief minister. The first is, by knowing how, with prudence, to dispose of a wife, a daughter, or a sister; the second, by betraying or undermining his predecessor; and the third is, by a furious zeal, in public assemblies, against the corruptions of the court. But a wise prince would rather choose to employ those who practise the last of these methods; because such zealots prove always the most obsequious and subservient to the will and passions of their master. That these ministers, having all employments at their disposal, preserve themselves in power, by bribing the majority of a senate or great council; and at last, by an expedient, called an act of indemnity” (whereof I described the nature to him), “they secure themselves from after-reckonings, and retire from the public laden with the spoils of the nation.

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

Martin came back and looked at the beady eyes, sneering, truculent, cowardly, and there leaped into his vision, as on a screen, the same eyes when their owner was making a sale in the store below—subservient eyes, smug, and oily, and flattering.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langdon, where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.

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