servile

From Middle English servyle, from Old French servil, servile, from Latin servīlis, from servus (“slave”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɜː(ɹ)ˌvaɪl/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsəɹ.vəl/, /ˈsəɹˌvaɪl/

servile (comparative more servile, superlative most servile)

1. Excessively eager to please; obsequious.
   • 2021, Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian‎:

     British “subjects” (not citizens, note) are just that: gleefully servile to the monarchy’s institutionalised inequality...

2. Slavish or submissive.

   Synonym: abject

   Antonyms: arrogant, authoritarian

   servile flattery    servile obedience

   1. Of or pertaining to a slave.
   • c. 1699 – 1703, Alexander Pope, “The First Book of Statius His Thebais”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC:

     Even fortune rules no more, O servile land!

3. (grammar) Not belonging to the original root.

   a servile letter

4. (grammar) Not sounded, but serving to lengthen the preceding vowel, like the e in tune.

• servility

• serve
• servant
• slave

servile (plural serviles)

1. (grammar) An element which forms no part of the original root.
2. A slave; a menial.

• radical

• leviers, relives, reviles, veilers

Borrowed from Latin servīlis.

• IPA^(key): /sɛʁ.vil/

servile (plural serviles)

1. servile, slavish, subservient

• serf
• servilement
• servilité
• servir

• “servile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• leviers, lièvres, livrées

From Latin servīlis.

• IPA^(key): /serˈvi.le/
• Rhymes: -ile
• Hyphenation: ser‧vì‧le

servile (plural servili)

1. servile

• servilmente

• servire
• servitù
• servo

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /serˈu̯iː.le/, [s̠ɛrˈu̯iːɫ̪ɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /serˈvi.le/, [serˈviːle]

servīle

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of servīlis

• servīliter

servile

1. Alternative form of servyle

servile

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of servir combined with le