subservient

adjective

sub·​ser·​vi·​ent səb-ˈsər-vē-ənt 

1

: useful in an inferior capacity : subordinate

2

: serving to promote some end

3

: obsequiously submissive : truckling

subserviently adverb

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How Should You Use subservient?

Since sub- means "below", it emphasizes the lower position of the person in the subservient one. Soldiers of a given rank are always subservient to those of a higher rank; this subservience is symbolized by the requirement that they salute their superior at every opportunity. Women have often been forced into subservient relationships with men. A small nation may feel subservient to its more powerful neighbor, obliged to obey even when it doesn't want to. So subservience usually brings with it a good dose of resentment.

Examples of subservient in a Sentence

Sally Boysen, a psychologist at Ohio State University, probed the degree to which a chimp's ability to reason is subservient to the animal's desires. —Eugene Linden, Time, 6 Sept. 1999

That's why many believe that I have the right to preach but not to pastor. For a woman to be a pastor would mean that men would have to submit and be subservient to a woman. —Chryll Crews, Ms., January/February 1998

As for a "European Europe," allied with but not subservient to the United States, providing for its own defense and diplomacy and practicing detente with Moscow, de Gaulle did not achieve it in his lifetime, but there was at least a beginning. —Stanley Hoffmann, New York Times Book Review, 20 Mar. 1983

She refused to take a subservient role in their marriage.

Recent Examples on the Web

This sci-fi film takes viewers to a near future where our main character Nick (Michele Morrone), a construction foreman struggling to manage his family while his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) battles a serious illness, turns to a subservient robot named Alice (played by Fox) for help. —Travis Bean, Forbes, 7 Dec. 2024

Male fantasies à la the movie Her abound, centered around a subservient love interest with no bodily or emotional needs of her own. —Emily Watlington, ARTnews.com, 27 Nov. 2024

The curriculums in these institutions attempted to force Native students to abandon their identities, participate in the dispossession of their communities’ homelands, and assimilate into American society as subservient laborers. —TIME, 25 Nov. 2024

The weirdness of her initial antagonism with Glinda, and later her subservient role with crippled half sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) — one of the film’s many minority-group tokens — exposes the gimmick of ethnic patronization. —Armond White, National Review, 27 Nov. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Latin subservient-, subserviens, present participle of subservire — see subserve

First Known Use

circa 1626, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

subservient

adjective

sub·​ser·​vi·​ent səb-ˈsər-vē-ənt 

1

: useful in an inferior capacity : subordinate

2

: inclined or willing to submit to others : submissive

subserviently adverb