(a.) Of or pertaining to a servant or slave; befitting a servant or a slave; proceeding from dependence; hence, meanly submissive; slavish; mean; cringing; fawning; as, servile flattery; servile fear; servile obedience.
(a.) Held in subjection; dependent; enslaved.
(a.) Not belonging to the original root; as, a servile letter.
(a.) Not itself sounded, but serving to lengthen the preceeding vowel, as e in tune.
(n.) An element which forms no part of the original root; -- opposed to radical.
Example Sentences:
(1) In its intransigence over Kashmir, the Indian state has, among other things, waged a narrative war, in which it tells itself and its citizens via servile media, that there is no dispute, that it’s an internal matter – and whatever troubles there are in the idyllic valley are the work of jihadis from Pakistan.
(2) In any case, the Brits are a notoriously lily-livered shower when it comes to workplace politics, too craven to strike – [note to non-British readers: we're a sorry servile bunch, we don't like it up us] - and as a result, poor John's failed coup has led to him becoming the most reviled union leader in British history, ahead of the excellent Bob Crow, the much misunderstood Arthur Scargill, and Gary Neville.
(3) She is still reliant on a fairy godmother ( Helena Bonham Carter ) to help wrest her from this servile purgatory, and her life ambitions still seem to include marrying a prince and wearing a very nice dress.
(4) Until this happened, the entire outside world thought of Tunisia as a downmarket tourist destination, with a servile attitude towards the west.
(5) Turnbull is likely to forge ahead with Abbott’s two-track convention process and a curated referendum council, to which mob are already saying they will not be servile.
(6) "Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility.
(7) All patients had variable dysphagia of variable servility with or without aspiration.
(8) "The new servile class," is how Danny Dorling, author of So You Think You Know About Britain, refers to them and he says they've grown out of all proportion in the past 25 years.
(9) Craxi broke a long tradition of servility towards the US by facing down President Ronald Reagan over the hijack of the Achille Lauro cruise liner.
(10) Their servile acceptance of the European austerity diktat sounded their death knell.
(11) There are stereotypes of Asian women as servile, as passive, as fulfilling some kind of service role.
(12) No high growth indices or boasting about being an economic "powerhouse" can cover up the scandal of a servile adherence to colonial bigotry.
(13) She comes to save the corrupt, disgraced and servile political system," said Alexis Tsipras, who leads the opposition Syriza alliance.
(14) In Gujarat, journalists in Ahmedabad say, simple intimidation has reduced the press corps to cowed servility.
(15) On parallel narrative tracks, we follow Cecil as he serves a succession of presidents, glad that his job, however servile, has offered him an escape from the Georgia cotton fields where he grew up in the 1920s, witnessing his mother's rape and his father being shot for protesting.
(16) This seems a bit of a stretch from "seeing his nakedness", but we know the Bible has a quaint way with sexual deeds: lying with each other, knowing each other – and why would Ham's offspring be condemned to servility for an innocent incident?
(17) This caring for others out of love is not about being servile,” he said.
(18) The men bow with a touch of servility; the women follow.
(19) In the second case, a latency-age girl's coy and servile mannerisms endeared her to adults and served as a reaction formation to her own need to be nurtured.
(20) People close to the former president are dismayed by what they see as a servile, one-way relationship, in which Ghani concedes too much without getting anything in return.
Slavish
Definition:
(a.) Of or pertaining to slaves; such as becomes or befits a slave; servile; excessively laborious; as, a slavish life; a slavish dependance on the great.
Example Sentences:
(1) To organise society as an individualistic war of one against another was barbaric, while the other models, slavishly following the rules of one religion or one supreme leader, denied freedom.
(2) "But it's good for our relationship and for world affairs that the United Kingdom is in support so far of the major foreign policy initiatives of the Obama administration, not in any slavish way, but we are in support of them," Hague said.
(3) But one has a right to demand what purpose it fulfils," wrote the Times's critic, who felt that Bond's "blockishly naturalistic piece, full of dead domestic longueurs and slavishly literal bawdry", would "supply valuable ammunition to those who attack modern drama as half-baked, gratuitously violent and squalid".
(4) Apart from a few diehards, it will be hard to mourn the defeat in 2010 of a political party that lost its moral bearings in its bid to woo middle England, slavishly reflecting back what it believed this narrow constituency wanted to hear.
(5) Clegg told the Foreign Correspondents' Association in London last month: "I think it's sometimes rather embarrassing the way Conservative and Labour politicians talk in this kind of slavish way about the 'special relationship'.
(6) There is an inability to break with the slavish, neoliberal worship of that abstract totem, the national economy.
(7) There are better comparisons for a “slavishly dependent” relationship.
(8) The time is ripe for nursing actively to take advantage of the capacities and potentials of these tools, which slavishly and untiringly carry out tasks and relay information that can contribute to the well-being of patients and the advancement of nursing.
(9) He's not a slavish disciple of markets, or small government (although fiscal circumstances and periodic stiffening from economic dries within the Liberal party may make him something of a latterday convert on this score at least).
(10) And the Nauru files unveil how conditions in the camps are clinically euphemised for the outside world: critical incidents, in which refugees have attempted to kill themselves, or are raped or assaulted, are downgraded to the classifications “major” or “minor”, ensuring that Wilson – the security subcontractor on the island – won’t be fined for failing to report them in time; doctors’ orders that someone be moved for urgent medical treatment are overruled by a department slavishly determined to uphold a policy, regardless of medical consequence.
(11) They're not slavish to the lyrics rulebook, so you'll never catch me singing 'Oh baby, baby yeah'.
(12) One wonders why only 20% of Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim , considering the overwhelming evidence conclusively proving his slavish allegiance to Islam and utter disregard for Christianity.
(13) They despised Bond's characters, his "slavishly literal bawdry", the lack of artistry in his writing.
(14) He went on: I think it's sometimes rather embarrassing the way Conservative and Labour politicians talk in this kind of slavish way about the special relationship.
(15) "And adidas, Nike, Puma etc slavishly going along with it.
(16) As a veteran critic of the academy model, I can’t deny a smidgeon of satisfaction at hearing concerns about centralisation, patchy quality, loss of freedom, reduction in parent choice and the anti-democratic nature of coercion coming from the mouths of people who have slavishly supported this wrong-headed policy for the past 10 years.
(17) But the young players who have followed his instructions so slavishly – so much so that one or two commentators compared BVB to a cult with Klopp as the spiritual leader – are now a little older, perhaps a little wiser but maybe a little slower as well.
(18) Emmet, meanwhile, must learn to stop slavishly following "the instructions", improvise and think the unthinkable.
(19) Of course, some fear a slavishly pro-SNP daily paper will be a McPravda – reprinting SNP press releases, praising every aspect of Scottish government policy and turning off open-minded readers.
(20) The monument hails him as “the scourge of corrupt and slavish times, full of vice and tyrants”.