Subserve
[sәb'sә:v]
Definition
(v. t.) To serve in subordination or instrumentally; to be subservient to; to help forward; to promote.
(v. i.) To be subservient or subordinate; to serve in an inferior capacity.
Typed by Ada
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Promote, forward, further, serve, help forward, be subservient to, pander to, minister to.
Inputed by Delia
Definition
v.t. to serve subordinately or instrumentally: to help forward.—ns. Subser′vience Subser′viency state of being subservient: anything that promotes some purpose.—adj. Subser′vient subserving: serving to promote: subject: submissive.—adv. Subser′viently.
Edited by Anselm
Examples
- I tell you, you want love to administer to your egoism, to subserve you. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- Ah, if only he had asked HER to subserve him, to be his slave! D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- He valued the sciences, not on their own account, but as they might subserve the purposes of the orator. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- Fulton’s attention was drawn from canal-building to the possibility of some invention that might tend to subserve peace, and this in time led him to design and build the first torpedo. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- But there is no doubt that besides removing dirt of all kinds, they subserve other functions; and one of these apparently is defence. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- I grant that this Liberia may have subserved all sorts of purposes, by being played off, in the hands of our oppressors, against us. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Typed by Gilda