Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One who is privately employed to perform domestic services.
- noun One who is publicly employed to perform services, as for a government.
- noun One who expresses submission, recognizance, or debt to another.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To subject; subordinate.
- To furnish with one or more servants.
- noun One who serves or attends, whether voluntarily or involuntarily; a person employed by another, and subject to his orders; one who exerts himself or herself, or labors, for the benefit of a master or an employer; an attendant; a subordinate assistant; an agent.
- noun Specifically
- noun A bondman or bondwoman; a slave.
- noun (b A person hired for a specified time to do manual or field labor; a laborer.
- noun A person in domestic service; a household or personal attendant; a domestic; a menial. An upper servant is one who has assistants under him or her, as a butler, a head cook, or a head coachman; an under servant is one who takes orders from an upper one, as an under-nurse, a scullery-maid, or a groom.
- noun One in a state of subjection.
- noun One who dedicates himself to the service of another; one who professes himself ready to do the will of another. See phrases below.
- noun A professed lover. The correlative term mistress is still in use.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb obsolete To subject.
- noun One who serves, or does services, voluntarily or on compulsion; a person who is employed by another for menial offices, or for other labor, and is subject to his command; a person who labors or exerts himself for the benefit of another, his master or employer; a subordinate helper.
- noun One in a state of subjection or bondage.
- noun obsolete A professed lover or suitor; a gallant.
- noun one debased to the lowest condition of servitude.
- noun phrases of civility formerly often used in closing a letter, now archaic; -- at one time such phrases were exaggerated to include
Your most humble, most obedient servant .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun One who
serves another, providinghelp in some manner. - noun One who is
hired to perform regularhousehold or other duties, and receivescompensation . As opposed to aslave . - verb obsolete To
subject .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun in a subordinate position
- noun a person working in the service of another (especially in the household)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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According to Paul, Philemon was to receive Onesimus "_not_ as a servant;" -- according to Stuart, he was to receive him "_as a servant_!"
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society
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"NOT _now as a servant, but above a servant_, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord."
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society
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"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master," &c., sets the servant free from his _authority_ and of course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which _as his servant_, he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts.
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society
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"NOT _now as a servant, but above a servant_, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord."
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society
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"NOT _now as a servant, but above a servant_, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord."
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society
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Not a single instance is recorded, of a servant being sold by any one but himself; not a case, either under the patriarchal, or the Mosaic systems, in which a _master sold his servant_.
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society
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Use, _I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant; Very respectfully, your most obedient servant_; etc., etc.
Higher Lessons in English A work on english grammar and composition Brainerd Kellogg
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Yours truly; Truly yours; Yours respectfully; Very respectfully yours_, etc. In official letters use _I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant; Very respectfully, your most obedient servant_.
Graded Lessons in English an Elementary English Grammar Consisting of One Hundred Practical Lessons, Carefully Graded and Adapted to the Class-Room Brainerd Kellogg
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Yours truly; Truly yours; Yours respectfully; Very respectfully yours_, etc. In official letters use _I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant; Very respectfully, your most obedient servant_.
Graded Lessons in English an Elementary English Grammar Consisting of One Hundred Practical Lessons, Carefully Graded and Adapted to the Class-Room Brainerd Kellogg
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According to Paul, Philemon was to receive Onesimus "_not_ as a servant;" -- according to Stuart, he was to receive him "_as a servant_!"
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society
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While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said: “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.
It’s About the Who - Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership 2024
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