adjective
definition
Useful in an inferior capacity.
definition
Obsequiously submissive.
Examples of subservient in a Sentence
Should I be fearful or subservient?
It became, indeed, subservient to the Romanist archbishopric of Prague, which had been reestablished by Ferdinand I.
But above all things the church was being criticized as an imperium in imperio, a privileged body not amenable to ordinary jurisdiction, and subservient to a foreign lordthe pope.
He made every labor subservient to this noble end.
Members of the General Assembly lack initiative, and are too subservient in the face of American power.
Such a revision will mean the poorest countries will remain subservient.
The trouble is, I 'm not really suited to hotel work, I 'm just not subservient enough.
But Kiamil Pasha was not subservient enough to his imperial master's will, and his place was taken by a military man, Jevad Pasha, from whom no independence of action was to be apprehended.
To persist in the view that nurses are always subservient to doctors is to do the profession a disservice.
The institutions of state became subservient to the whims of Number 10.
Alex is the traditional king of the castle and you are – at least to some degree – subservient.
As a precaution against an eventual French attempt to restore the temporal power, orders were hurriedly given to complete the defences of Rome, but in other respects the Italian government maintained its subservient attitude.
So complete became the breach between them that in 1773 the royal government had nearly ceased to operate, and in 1774 the governor was deserted by his hitherto subservient council.
To this aim everything in the political life of Cassiodorus was subservient, and this aim he evidently kept before him in his Gothic history.
In the relation between Zoroaster and Vishtaspa already lies the germ of the state church which afterwards became completely subservient to the interests of the dynasty and sought its protection from it.
The sultan determined henceforth to appoint Greeks to the principalities as more likely to be subservient to his will than the natives hitherto appointed.
His government was a military despotism resting upon a well-appointed army; it was administered through officials absolutely subservient to an inflexible will and controlled by a widespread system of espionage; while the exercise of his personal authority was too often stained by acts of unnecessary cruelty.
The columns of Trajan and Antoninus were restored and bedecked with gilded statues of the Apostles; nor was this the only case in which the high-minded pope made the monuments of antiquity subservient to Christian ideas.
As soon as the parliament was dissolved he had its proceedings reversed, and next year secured a more subservient assembly.
The princes, now for the first time referred to officially as domini terrae, were given full rights of jurisdiction over their lands and all the inferior officers of justice were made subservient to them.
The fate of the Jesuits hung in the balance; and the Bourbon princes were determined to have a pope subservient to their hostile designs.
As king of the Jews (37-4 B.C.) Herod was completely subject and eagerly subservient to his Roman masters.
Lord Auckland forthwith resolved upon the hazardous plan of placing a more subservient ruler upon the throne of Kabul.
It troubled him to see her torn between obedient daughter and subservient wife.
Alex is the traditional king of the castle and you are – at least to some degree – subservient.
The woman beside her was far too subservient for her comfort; if their brother expected her behavior to conform, he was in for a surprise.
And then there's this crowd of nobles, all subservient to him, all beholden to him and dependent on his favor.
And he refreshingly keeps the message subservient to the comedy.
For training needs to be totally subservient to service pressures would be inappropriate.
Married womens ' lack of property rights made them ciphers in economic and social terms, entirely subservient to their husbands ' will.
In these traditional southern Arabian works, the human figure has no life of its own it is completely subservient.
Everything was made subservient to ostentation, even wounds, which were often subsequently enlarged for the purpose of boasting a broader scar.
Those weaker or less cunning than himself he could either disregard or render subservient.
There was much true poetry in the verse, and much sound sense and keen observation in the prose of these works; but the poetical feeling and lyrical facility of the one, and the more solid qualities of the other, seemed best employed when they were subservient to his rapid wit, and to the ingenious coruscations of his fancy.
These notes from deeds, evidently collected by an honest inquirer, make no extravagant claims of ancient ancestry or illustrious origin for the Howards, although the facts contained in them were recklessly manipulated by subservient genealogists.
Charles, however, paid Wolsey the sincere compliment of thinking that he would not be sufficiently subservient on the papal throne; while he wrote letters in Wolsey's favour, he took care that they should not reach their destination in time; and Wolsey failed to secure election both in 1521 and 1524.
Gregory was completely subservient to Philip II.; he aided the league, excommunicated Henry of Navarre, and threatened his adherents with the ban; but the effect of his intervention was only to rally the moderate Catholics to the support of Henry, and to hasten his conversion.
They are, rather, subservient to a reptilian race of people from their home planet.
Crichton, the butler, performs a subservient role.
His motivation was to prove that the creators of ancient Egyptian civilization were white and that blacks existed only in subservient positions.
Most specifically, the subservient relationship with George Bush has been the real cause of Tony Blair 's downfall.
Good idea for subservient women but would not remain secret for long among emancipated women.
By the time the English took over the administration, the Germans had emancipated most vassal chiefdoms from that subservient status.
However, the other members of the EU are not themselves prepared to play the role of subservient partners.
The topic of a wife's health is another hot topic, as many people make the claim that women who have one child after another are putting their health at risk or are being placed into a subservient position by their husbands.
The nine kings who wore their rings of power became the Nazgul, the shadow riders and completely subservient to Sauron.
I have no intention of being subservient - and how is that taking a backward step, anyway?
His grandfather had an almost subservient relationship to Tim's, but Brady had left the shadows on many occasions to remind Tim of what really mattered when the politician's ego started to get the best of him.
His extreme impecuniosity made him from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint - then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings - curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position.
The young duchess died in her seventeenth year after giving birth to a son, and the duke took a second wife from a humble stock, newly enriched and honoured, the daughter of Henry VIII.'s subservient chancellor, the Lord Audley of Walden.