sb. and a. [f. TURN sb. 30 + SERVING vbl. sb. and ppl. a.] a. sb. The action or practice of serving one’s own turn; the promotion of one’s private interest; self-seeking; an instance of this. b. adj. That serves its own turn; promoting one’s own ends. So † Turn-served a., that has served his own turn (obs.); Turn-server, one whose motive is his own interest. Cf. TIME-SERVER, etc.
1613. Chapman, Masque Inns of Court, Plays, 1873, III. 109. The sight of an attendant for reward is abominable in the eyes of a *turne-seru’d Politician.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xvi. (1623), 839. A deceitfull man, a *turn-server.
1710. Answ. to Bp. of Oxford’s Sp., 18. The Memory of all Time and Turn-Servers will be forgotten.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xi. § 62. His name was abased to all sorts of *turne-seruings.
1616. Bacon, Lett. to Sir G. Villiers, 12 Aug. Though now, since Choice goeth better both in Church and Common-wealth, yet Money, and Turn-Serving, and Cunning Canvises, and Importunity, prevail too much.
1584. Powel, Lloyd’s Cambria, 278. Let people take heede how they build upon *turne-seruing freendship.
1842. G. S. Faber, Prov. Lett. (1844), II. 189. A mere temporary and turn-serving appeal to Antiquity.
