| 释义 |
servility|sɜːˈvɪlɪtɪ|
[f. servile a. + -ity. Cf. F. servilité (18th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
†1. Servile condition; the quality or status of being a slave; the condition of being in bondage.
1591Savile Tacitus, Agricola 238 As our ancestours attained..the highest pitch and perfection of liberty, so we of servility. 1613T. Jackson Eternal Truth Script. i. ii. §3. ix. 167 Such seruilitie as the Iewes suffered vnder the Greeks & Asiaticks. 1615Rich Honestie of Age 47 The Pride of this age is growne to that height, that..who is able by the outward shew, to discerne betweene Nobility and Seruility, to know a Lord from a Lowt? 1645Milton Colast. 15 How should hee a Servingman..know..what the meaning is of gentle... Who could have devis'd to give us more breifly a better description of his own Servility?
quasi-concr.1667Milton P.L. vi. 169 Such hast thou arm'd, the Minstrelsie of Heav'n, Servilitie with freedom to contend.
fig.1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 255 Shall the will be therfore not wicked in doyng wickedly, bycause it is not free, but enforced to yield to a necessary Servilitie?
2. Servile disposition or conduct.
†a. Illiberality, meanness. Obs.
a1610Healey Theophrastus (1616) 77 Illiberality, or Servility, is too great a contempt of glorie, proceeding from the like desire to spare expence.
b. Mean submissiveness, degradingly obsequious demeanour, cringing. (The prevailing sense.)
1573G. Harvey Common-pl. Bk. (1884) 15 He tould me..that it was mi flatteri and Serviliti (for so it pleasd him now to term it) that bewitchid him. 1674Govt. Tongue viii. 135 Lying, Servility, and Treachery..make up a loathsome Monstrous guilt. 1797Ht. Lee Canterb. T. (1799) I. 374 The domestics..had an air of servility and constraint. 1841Elphinstone Hist. India I. 465 The ceremonial of the kings, however, had not the servility since introduced by the Mussulmans. 1856Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. ii. 185 The servility with which she addressed the cardinal so long as he was in power. 1874Green Short Hist. vii. §1. 341 The success of such a system depended wholly on the absolute servility of Parliament. 1909H. M. Gwatkin Early Ch. Hist. I. iii. 50 Servility to Rome and armed resistance were alike impossible.
personified.1781Cowper Table-T. 127 Servility with supple knees, Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please.
c. Lack of independence in opinion or action; undue subjection or deference to some person or influence.
1674Govt. Tongue vi. 94 For what besides this unhappy servility to custome, can possibly reconcile men that own Christianity, to a practice widely distant from it? 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. I. 398 In our island there was less of this servility than on the Continent... Yet even here homage was paid..to the literary supremacy of our neighbours.
d. Of imitation, translation, etc.: The quality of being servile or unduly close to the original.
1782F. Burney Cecilia viii. v, Servility of imitation. |