Subservient

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Subservient \Sub*serv"i*ent\, a. [L. subserviens, -entis, p. pr.
     See {Subserve}.]
     Fitted or disposed to subserve; useful in an inferior
     capacity; serving to promote some end; subordinate; hence,
     servile, truckling.
     [1913 Webster]


  
           Scarce ever reading anything which he did not make
           subservient in one kind or other.        --Bp. Fell.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           These ranks of creatures are subservient one to
           another.                                 --Ray.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their
           proselytizing spirit.                    --Burke.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  subservient
       adj 1: compliant and obedient to authority; "editors and
              journalists who express opinions in print that are
              opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and
              replaced by subservient ones"-G. B. Shaw
       2: abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant;
          "slavish devotion to her job ruled her life"; "a slavish
          yes-man to the party bosses"- S.H.Adams; "she has become
          submissive and subservient" [syn: {slavish}, {submissive}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  109 Moby Thesaurus words for "subservient":
     abject, accepting, accessory, acquiescent, adjuvant, agential,
     agentival, agentive, agreeable, ancillary, appurtenant, assenting,
     assistant, assisting, auxiliary, base, client, collateral, common,
     complaisant, compliable, compliant, complying, conducive,
     consenting, contributory, cowering, cringing, crouching,
     deferential, demeaning, dependent, disadvantaged, employable,
     facilitating, favoring, fawning, feudal, feudatory, forwarding,
     fostering, handy, helpful, helping, humble, ignoble, in the shade,
     inferior, infra dig, instrumental, intermediary, junior, less,
     lesser, liege, low, lower, lowly, mean, mediating, mediatorial,
     menial, ministerial, ministering, ministrant, minor, modest,
     nondissenting, nonresistant, nonresisting, nonresistive, nurtural,
     nutricial, obedient, obeisant, obsequious, on bended knee,
     ordinary, passive, promoting, prone, prostrate, resigned,
     second rank, second string, secondary, serviceable, servile,
     serving, slavish, sub, subaltern, subject, submissive, subordinate,
     subsidiary, supine, third rank, third string, tributary, truckling,
     unassertive, uncomplaining, underprivileged, unresistant,
     unresisting, useful, vassal, vulgar