subservient Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite compliant and obedient to authority
    • editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones"-G. B. Shaw
  2. adjective satellite serving or acting as a means or aid
    instrumental; implemental.
    • instrumental in solving the crime
  3. adjective satellite abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant
    submissive; slavish.
    • slavish devotion to her job ruled her life
    • a slavish yes-man to the party bosses"- S.H.Adams
    • she has become submissive and subservient

WordNet

Sub*serv"i*ent adjective
Etymology
L. subserviens, -entis, p.pr. See Subserve.
Definitions
  1. Fitted or disposed to subserve; useful in an inferior capacity; serving to promote some end; subordinate; hence, servile, truckling.
    Scarce ever reading anything which he did not make subservient in one kind or other. Bp. Fell.
    These ranks of creatures are subservient one to another. Ray.
    Their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytizing spirit. Burke.

Webster 1913