| 释义 |
subservient, a. (n.)|səbˈsɜːvɪənt|
[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.
1632Tatham 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. 1651Baxter Inf. Bapt. 144 If they do preach any wholsom Doctrine, it is usually but subservient to their great Design. 1656Ridgley Pract. Physick 55 The spirits..subservient to the imagination in the Brain. 1690Locke 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. 1729Butler Serm. Wks. 1874 II. 150 Every particular affection..is subservient to self-love. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xviii. (1787) II. 99 The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of cruelty. 1873Symonds Grk. Poets vii. 189 The drama renders all arts subservient to the one end of action. 1879G. C. 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.
1668Dryden 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. 1714R. Fiddes Pract. Disc. ii. 145 Persons who are subservient in this respect towards promoting the honour of God. 1719Young Revenge iii. i, This is a good subservient artifice, To aid the nobler workings of my brain. 1755Smollett Quix. (1803) II. 23 In making you subservient in facilitating our success.
†c. without construction. Obs.
1650Bulwer Anthropomet. 173 They are not in the number of them that perform an action, but of those that are subservient. 1661J. Fell Hammond 112 Scarce ever reading any thing which he did not make subservient in one kinde or other. 1701Grew 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.
1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. i. §140 That the Queen might have solely that Power, and he only be Subservient to her. 1667Decay Chr. Piety ii. ⁋13 Can we think he will be patient thus to be made subservient to his enemy? 1711G. Hickes Two Treat. Chr. Priesth. (1847) II. 79 The deacons as subservient inferior ministers. 1721Prior Predest. 63 Wks. 1907 II. 347 Is God subservient to his own Decree? 1873Hamerton 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.
1641Milton Ch. Govt. iii. Wks. 1851 III. 109 Copies out from the borrow'd manuscript of a subservient scrowl. 1656Tucker Rep. in Misc. Scott. Burgh Rec. Soc. 19 The towne is a mercat towne, but subservient and belonging..to the towne of Lynlithquo. 1687Dryden Hind & P. i. 88 Superiour faculties are set aside, Shall their subservient organs be my guide? 1709Pope Ess. Crit. 263 Most Critics, fond of some subservient art, Still made the Whole depend upon a Part. 1864Pusey Lect. Daniel ii. 88 Antiochus Epiphanes..directed against God what was to be subservient to God. 1870Disraeli 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.)
1681Stair 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]. 1884Law 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.
1794Mrs. Radcliffe Myst. Udolpho xlviii, Emily was..disgusted by the subservient manners of many persons, who [etc.]. 1819Scott Ivanhoe xxi, The foreigner came here poor, beggarly, cringing, and subservient. 1839James Louis XIV, IV. 251 He contrived to ally this subservient flattery to a degree of intemperate vehemence towards Louis. 1874Green Short Hist. viii. §2 (1882) 472 The lawyers had been subservient beyond all other classes to the Crown.
B. n. A subservient person or thing. rare.
1867D. 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. 1898Meredith Odes Fr. Hist. 35 The fair subservient of Imperial Fact. |