a. (sb.) [ad. L. subserviens, -entem, pr. pple. of subservīre to SUBSERVE.] A. adj.
1. Being of use or service as an instrument or means; serving as a means to further an end, object or purpose; serviceable. Const. to a person or thing, a design, condition, process.
1632. Tatham, Love crowns the end, I. Dram. Wks. (1878), 19. If these eyes be my own, I fondly trust They may be more subservient to me.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 144. If they do preach any wholsom Doctrine, it is usually but subservient to their great Design.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physick, 55. The spirits … subservient to the imagination in the Brain.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. ix. § 7. Ideas, which we may … suppose may be introduced into the Minds of Children in the Womb, subservient to the necessity of their Life … there.
1729. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 150. Every particular affection … is subservient to self-love.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xviii. (1787), II. 99. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of cruelty.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 189. The drama renders all arts subservient to the one end of action.
1879. Harlan, Eyesight, ii. 18. All the other structures of the eye may be considered subservient to this one [the retina].
† b. Const. to with inf. or a prep. with gerund.
1668. Dryden, Dram. Poesy, Wks. 1725, I. 43. They dwell on him and his concernments, while the rest of the Persons are only subservient to set him off.
1714. R. Fiddes, Pract. Disc., II. 145. Persons who are subservient in this respect towards promoting the honour of God.
1719. Young, Revenge, III. i. This is a good subservient artifice, To aid the nobler workings of my brain.
1755. Smollett, Quix. (1803), II. 23. In making you subservient in facilitating our success.
† c. without construction. Obs.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., 173. They are not in the number of them that perform an action, but of those that are subservient.
1661. J. Fell, Hammond, 112. Scarce ever reading any thing which he did not make subservient in one kinde or other.
1701. Grew, Cosmol. Sacra, II. i. 36. While we are awake, we feel none of those Motions, which are continually made, in the disposal of the Corporeal Principles Subservient herein.
2. Acting or serving in a subordinate capacity; subordinate, subject. Const. to.
a. of persons.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. § 140. That the Queen might have solely that Power, and he only be Subservient to her.
1667. Decay Chr. Piety, ii. ¶ 13. Can we think he will be patient thus to be made subservient to his enemy?
1711. G. Hickes, Two Treat. Chr. Priesth. (1847), II. 79. The deacons as subservient inferior ministers.
1721. Prior, Predest., 63, Wks. 1907, II. 347. Is God subservient to his own Decree?
1873. Hamerton, Intell. Life, VII. vi. 258. Women are by nature far more subservient to custom than we are.
1880. ‘Vernon Lee,’ Italy, III. i. 73. They wanted the singer to remain subservient to the composer.
b. of things.
1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., iii. Wks. 1851, III. 109. Copies out from the borrow’d manuscript of a subservient scrowl.
1656. Tucker, Rep., in Misc. Scott. Burgh Rec. Soc., 19. The towne is a mercat towne, but subservient and belonging … to the towne of Lynlithquo.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., I. 88. Superiour faculties are set aside, Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
1709. Pope, Ess. Crit., 263. Most Critics, fond of some subservient art, Still made the Whole depend upon a Part.
1864. Pusey, Lect. Daniel, ii. 88. Antiochus Epiphanes … directed against God what was to be subservient to God.
1870. Disraeli, Lothair, xii. Assuming that religion was true … then religion should be the principal occupation of man, to which all other pursuits should be subservient.
c. Law. (Cf. SERVIENT and SERVITUDE 7.)
1681. Stair, Inst. Law Scot., I. xvi. 327. Personal Servitudes are, whereby the property of one is subservient to the person of another.
1681. [see SERVITUDE 7].
1884. Law Rep., 25 Chanc. Div. 580. The mortgagees of C, D, and E … acquiesced in those blocks being made subservient to the adjoining block B.
3. Of persons, their actions, etc.: Slavishly submissive; truckling, obsequious.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xlviii. Emily was … disgusted by the subservient manners of many persons, who [etc.].
1819. Scott, Ivanhoe, xxi. The foreigner came here poor, beggarly, cringing, and subservient.
1839. G. P. R. James, Louis XIV., IV. 251. He contrived to ally this subservient flattery to a degree of intemperate vehemence towards Louis.
1874. Green, Short Hist., viii. § 2 (1882), 472. The lawyers had been subservient beyond all other classes to the Crown.
B. sb. A subservient person or thing. rare.
1867. D. Page, Man, 143. The primitive notion that this earth was the centre of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars, formed merely to be its subservients.
1898. Meredith, Odes Fr. Hist., 35. The fair subservient of Imperial Fact.
