Word.ws English Dictionary

servile

/ˈsɜː(ɹ)ˌvaɪl/US/ˈsəɹ.vəl/

servile adjective: excessively eager to please; obsequious.

Adjective

servile (comparative more servile, superlative most servile)

  1. Excessively eager to please; obsequious.
    • British “subjects” (not citizens, note) are just that: gleefully servile to the monarchy’s institutionalised inequality...2021, Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian
  2. Slavish or submissive.
    • servile flattery servile obedience
    • Even fortune rules no more, O servile land!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
    Synonyms:
    abject
    1. Of or pertaining to slaves or slavery.
  3. Not belonging to the original root.
    • a servile letter
  4. Not sounded, but serving to lengthen the preceding vowel, like the e in tune.

Noun

servile (plural serviles)

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

servile meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

servile in Hindi

servile, abject, obsequious, weak
दब्बू dabbū

servile in Tamil

அடிமைத்தனமான, இழிவான

servile in Urdu

غلامانہ, ستم رسیدہ

servile in Malayalam

ദാസ്യമായ, അതിരുകടന്ന അനുസരണാശീലമുള്ള, ദാസ്യസംബന്ധമായ, അടിമത്തപരമായ
More languagesFewer languages
servile in Kannada
ಗುಲಾಮತನದ, ದಾಸ್ಯದ, ಜೀತದ, ದಾಸ್ಯಮನೋಭಾವದ

Examples of servile in a sentence

  • We know the slave by his servile character and the master by his herile character.
  • The choice of such non-entities in ostensibly important positions betrays their servile role.
  • L'éternel recommencement, l'imitation servile des styles anciens empêchent toute conception originale.

All 11 example sentences with servile

Synonyms of servile

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of servile

Forms of servile

Adjective
comparativemore servile
superlativemost servile
Noun
pluralserviles

Origin of servile

From Middle English servyle, from Old French servil, servile, from Latin servīlis, from servus (“slave”). By surface analysis, serve + -ile.

Words formed from servile

Questions about servile

What does servile mean?
Servile means excessively eager to please; obsequious.
What is servile in Hindi?
Servile in Hindi is दब्बू (dabbū). See Servile meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is servile?
Servile can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce servile?
Servile is pronounced /ˈsɜː(ɹ)ˌvaɪl/ (UK).

Words near servile in the dictionary

  1. servient tenements
  2. serviential
  3. serviette
  4. serviettes
  5. servil
  6. servile
  7. servile arts
  8. servilely
  9. servileness
  10. serviles
  11. servilest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: servile (page history and authors); दब्बू (Hindi) (page history and authors); servile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); servile (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); servile (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); servile (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-servile.wav.

Cite this entry: “servile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/servile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.