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servile
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show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • "Sycophant—a servile flatterer," she twanged proudly like she was giving an answer in English class.   (source)
    servile = submissive -- often so submissive or eager to serve and please that one seems to have no self-respect
  • ...be obedient, be servile,   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • And wasn't that old slave a scientist--or at least called one, recognized as one--even when he stood with hat in hand, bowing and scraping in senile and obscene servility?   (source)
    servility = submissiveness
  • I grew to like these mountain people, silent, reserved, never servile...   (source)
    servile = excessively submissive
  • —or again to go out into the street simply to experience what it was like to walk into all the doors, all the joints and movies and restaurants, to talk to white men in the lobby without servility, to look at women and see them smile courteously.   (source)
    servility = excessive submissiveness
  • "Are you guilty?" said Winston.
    "Of course I'm guilty!" cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. "You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you? ... Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing,"   (source)
    servile = excessively submissive
  • Tom said, "Well" and then his voice took on a servile whine.   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • Formerly he had the same combination of servility and impertinence which Wilkerson possessed...   (source)
    servility = submissiveness, and/or eagerness to serve and please
  • I find myself liking only those who are servile.   (source)
    servile = submissive and eager to serve and please
  • The lieutenant took a look at the bowed servile figure on the bench.   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • The effort succeeded, for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied.   (source)
  • When he turned into Major Callendar's compound he could with difficulty restrain himself from getting down from the tonga and approaching the bungalow on foot, and this not because his soul was servile but because his feelings—the sensitive edges of him— feared a gross snub.   (source)
  • When his servant entered.... The man was quite impassive, and waited for his orders. Dorian ... could see the reflection of Victor's face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility.   (source)
    servility = submissiveness
  • Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my attention.   (source)
    servile = submissive, and eager to serve and please
  • Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow.   (source)
    servile = completely submissive
  • He obeyed then, but the strength of his desire protested against the servility of his conduct;   (source)
    servility = submissiveness
  • The crouching servility, usually so acceptable a quality in a slave, did not...   (source)
  • She also is dressed with great neatness, and her white, delicate hands betray very little acquaintance with servile toil.   (source)
    servile = appropriate for a servant or slave
  • I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method.   (source)
    servile = excessively submissive
  • Near him stood another man who wore a second lieutenant's insignia, yet hovered about the lower-ranking corporal with eager servility.†   (source)
  • He's too casual, he's not servile enough.†   (source)
  • Obligingly Gyuri stepped forward, opened it, set it down with a servile bow of his head, and stepped away for the old guy to look at it.†   (source)
  • A savage servility slides by on grease. — ROBERT LOWELL†   (source)
  • I was prepared to be servile and fawning if it would keep him from dropping casually shattering remarks about my degree of exposure and chances for survival.†   (source)
  • It was just an innkeeper: friendly, servile, and so unassuming as to almost be invisible.†   (source)
  • When all the attendees had wet their throats, the servile novitiates returned the High Priest to the litter and bound the creature's shoulders with strips of white linen.†   (source)
  • Even the white faculty behaved in a servile manner to Reverend Harris, but Mr. Mahlasela would walk into the reverend's office without fear, and sometimes would even fail to remove his hat!†   (source)
  • Aven began to retort something about not being servile to men, but the dragon's tone and manner was so respectful that she could not refuse.†   (source)
  • Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.†   (source)
  • She looked for fear in their servility, or hate in their attention, but saw none.†   (source)
  • He watched the lords and ladies, the serving men, the old blind seneschal, and the young maester Myles, with his silky beard and servile smile.†   (source)
  • I wanted to be his deliverer, and I expected the same measure of servility from him that I demanded from all the other humans who were the victims of my deliverance.†   (source)
  • They might be plotting servile insurrection, those long hard words that meant death to the master, death to the slave, too.†   (source)
  • According to Xenophon, Socrates urged Anytus's son not to "continue in the servile occupation [tanning hides] that his father has provided for him.†   (source)
  • Hoss trusted him, he was the Commandant's pet Polack; but within this simple being, superficially servile and obliging, there beat the heart of a patriot who had shown that he could be counted upon for certain missions, provided they were not too mentally taxing or complex.†   (source)
  • Some men were to be feared, and stalked cautiously; it was necessary to be servile with some; others were to be approached the way I was approached.†   (source)
  • "A sentiment of servility," snapped the press; and Governor Houston was shoved aside as a Secession Convention was called.†   (source)
  • She is only looking around-servile, undelighted, sleepy, expensive, tortured Mrs. Marblehall, pinning her mind with a pin to her husband's diet.†   (source)
  • ...the old soldier grew indignant with the servile excitement of the people and he realized that something had changed in the makeup of the men since the days when they would leave their wives and children and toss a shotgun on their shoulders to go off to war.   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation!   (source)
    servility = behavior of someone who is so excessively submissive or eager to please that they seem to lack self-respect
  • A shade of mockery relieved the servility of his manner.
    ...
    "There's nothing to touch a good slavey," he affirmed.   (source)
    servility = submissiveness
  • But what they want though it smells of death and can be made of India-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and won't revolt!   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as I was ashamed to put my name to.   (source)
    servilely = demeaningly obeying commands
  • Yet there was a certain guile; the tone was obsequious to the point of servility ("intrude upon the honored Commandant's valuable time") when it was not delicate to a fault ("and we can understand how the excessive use of alcohol might provoke such an escapade, which was no doubt harmlessly conceived"), but the plain fact was that the poor priest had written in a controlled frenzy of unhappiness, as if he and his flock had been divested of their most revered possession, which they no…†   (source)
  • Bove's message — that Frenchmen should not become "servile slaves at the service of agribusiness" — has struck a chord.†   (source)
  • Soon the door will open, and in will crowd a horde of snide and treacherous little girls, whispering and pointing, and I will be servile, grateful… My hands begin to sweat.†   (source)
  • …throughout Massachusetts in tens of thousands, he wrote a masterful reply—criticizing the Federalist party as sectional, outmoded and unpatriotic; insisting that the critical issues of war and peace could not be decided on the basis of "geographical position, party bias or professional occupation"; and exploding at Pickering's servile statement that "Although Great Britain, with her thousand ships of war, could have destroyed our commerce, she has really done it no essential injury."†   (source)
  • It would demean the Professor needlessly, would place too much emphasis on the sycophancy he had occasionally displayed in the face of manifestations of German might and potency, to portray him as buffoonishly servile in Duffield's presence; he possesses, after all, his own illustrious repute as a scholar and an expert in his field.†   (source)
  • If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit?†   (source)
  • His complacent smile, hard-lipped, loosened into servility.†   (source)
  • Below, benched in rapt servility, they waited for his first husky word.†   (source)
  • The rags of obedience, servility, reverential awe dropped in a belt around him.†   (source)
  • What dissolution of the soul you demanded in order to get through one day, what lies, bowings, scrapings, fluency and servility!†   (source)
  • JOE—(taps Lewis on the shoulder—servilely apologetic) If you objects to my sittin' here, Captain, just tell me and I pulls my freight.†   (source)
  • He had been taught all the noble arts of servility, and, from the earliest time that he could remember, there had lain pleasantly in the end of his nose the various scents of mint—used to freshen the water in the ewers—or of basil, camomile, fennel, hysop and lavender— which he had been taught to strew on the rushy floors—or of the angelica, saffron, aniseed, and tarragon, which were used to spice the savouries which he had to carry.†   (source)
  • Formerly he had the same combination of servility and impertinence which Wilkerson possessed but now, with Mr. Calvert and Raiford dead in the war and Cade sick, he had dropped all servility.†   (source)
  • And in the presence of any members of Jim or Will Pentland's family their manner was not only friendly, it was even touched slightly with servility.†   (source)
  • T. G. T. Bradley, a member of the sophomore class, was a surly scowling youth of nineteen—a mixture, in equal parts, of servility and insolence.†   (source)
  • Benevolently but distantly she smiled down upon him: the white parchment of his hard Polish face was broken by a grin of cruel servility curving up around the wings of his immense putty-colored nose.†   (source)
  • An hereditary servility, no doubt, was responsible.†   (source)
  • She was thanking him presumably for some piece of servility.†   (source)
  • There was a wealth of admiration mingled with a touch of servility.†   (source)
  • The host kept his eyes fixed on Muishkin, with an expression of passionate servility.†   (source)
  • Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money.†   (source)
  • "Yes, sir," the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and apologetic servility.†   (source)
  • He preferred suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility.†   (source)
  • There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well.†   (source)
  • As I passed him he touched his hat with some real goodwill and courtesy, and much servility.†   (source)
  • The servility of the one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the other to death.†   (source)
  • They inspected the tart at the bar, granting her the minimum of interest exacted by her profession, and she stared back with bright boldness; they went through the deserted lobby oppressed by draperies holding Victorian dust in stuffy folds, and they nodded at the night concierge who returned the gesture with the bitter servility peculiar to night servants.†   (source)
  • Better these poor mock dignities of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right spirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested power.†   (source)
  • It was distinctly more fitting to his newborn dignity to be as rude as possible; it was a sure sign of servility to meekly reply to civil questions.†   (source)
  • They watched as a rousing tale of love and murder in the court of an Oriental potentate unrolled silently before them; scene after opulent scene sped past, full of naked bodies, despotic lust, and abject servility blind in its zeal, full of cruelty, prurience, and fatal desire—and then suddenly the film slowed to linger revealingly on the muscular arm of an executioner.†   (source)
  • "Dear me—is it possible?" observed the clerk, while his face assumed an expression of great deference and servility—if not of absolute alarm: "what, a son of that very Semen Rogojin—hereditary honourable citizen—who died a month or so ago and left two million and a half of roubles?"†   (source)
  • 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility.†   (source)
  • I learned afterwards that my dress, and that of Mrs. Bruce's children, had been described to him by some of the Northern tools, which slaveholders employ for their base purposes, and then indulge in sneers at their cupidity and mean servility.†   (source)
  • Her servility and fulsome compliments when Emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's liking.†   (source)
  • '—'Well,' replied the traveller, who seemed used to this difference between the servility of a man of the cities and the pride of the mountaineer, 'if you refuse wages, you will, perhaps, accept a gift.†   (source)
  • She knew that the world is divided into masters whose duty it is to command, and simple folk whose duty it is to serve them—and so she felt no repugnance to servility and prostrations to the ground; but she treated those in subjection to her kindly and gently, never let a single beggar go away empty-handed, and never spoke ill of any one, though she was fond of gossip.†   (source)
  • He noticed that they whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind of awe and even servility.†   (source)
  • When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of nature, on imaginative minds.†   (source)
  • The order was obeyed promptly, though not servilely, the members of the crowd nodding familiarly to the members of the procession as it passed.†   (source)
  • The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person for whom they were waiting.†   (source)
  • If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard,—aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility, without the cruel hurt that hardened his heart and soul.†   (source)
  • *b This may more completely explain what frequently takes place in democratic countries, where the very men who are so impatient of superiors patiently submit to a master, exhibiting at once their pride and their servility.†   (source)
  • I tax no man's motives: let them lie between himself and a higher Power; but I do say, that there are influences at work here which are incompatible with genuine independence, and that a crawling servility is usually dictated by circumstances which gentlemen so conducting themselves could not afford either morally or financially to avow.†   (source)
  • Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off.†   (source)
  • "Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle."†   (source)
  • He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.†   (source)
  • For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation will cling to power.†   (source)
  • But men of high and generous characters are now to be met with, whose opinions are at variance with their inclinations, and who praise that servility which they have themselves never known.†   (source)
  • It is the idea of right which enabled men to define anarchy and tyranny; and which taught them to remain independent without arrogance, as well as to obey without servility.†   (source)
  • The man who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his activity and even his opinions to their control, can have no claim to rank as a free citizen.†   (source)
  • It grew attached to them when they were clement and just, and it submitted without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable visitations of the arm of God.†   (source)
  • But at the present day, when all ranks are more and more confounded, when the individual disappears in the throng, and is easily lost in the midst of a common obscurity, when the honor of monarchy has almost lost its empire without being succeeded by public virtue, and when nothing can enable man to rise above himself, who shall say at what point the exigencies of power and the servility of weakness will stop?†   (source)
  • "Doctor," said Harry Tugman with servile medicine-man respect, "what do you charge to operate?"†   (source)
  • For genius like Shakespeare's is not born among labouring, uneducated, servile people.†   (source)
  • Whilst the dull manage of a servile house Is held by some our utmost art and use.†   (source)
  • White, bewildered, servile, the patient slave's face.†   (source)
  • It is clear, for instance, that he liked to stand well with the rich and powerful, and was capable of flattering them in the most servile way.†   (source)
  • Neither was it servile.†   (source)
  • She meant to remain respectful but not be servile; she was white, and she already had a fighting face and quivered, but spoke up, practical and proud.†   (source)
  • Some part of this was due to his having been on the wrong side of the counter, or the servile back on the shoe-fitting stool, and in part this was his way of tempting me.†   (source)
  • No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.†   (source)
  • But there I do not agree with him, for I should have liked to have had more even of dubious gossip so that I might have found out or made up some image of this melancholy lady, who loved wandering in the fields and thinking about unusual things and scorned, so rashly, so unwisely, 'the dull manage of a servile house'.†   (source)
  • Cheaply and flashily dressed, with peg-top yellow shoes, flaring striped trousers, and a broadbrimmed straw hat with a colored band, he would walk down the avenue with a preposterous lurch, and a smile of strained assurance on his face, saluting with servile cordiality all who would notice him.†   (source)
  • I could think of nothing better than to give him a servile imitation of this attitude of despair.†   (source)
  • 'Not in bed yet,' he said, with a kind of servile heartiness; 'it's so natural.†   (source)
  • Consider!" said Lebedeff with almost servile amiability, smiling at the prince.†   (source)
  • Servile and fawning as he had been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose.†   (source)
  • Her tongue had refused to admit her servile condition.†   (source)
  • Not a servile one — these Hands will never do that!†   (source)
  • "Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's wealth and influence.†   (source)
  • "Or is it yours?" he said, addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.†   (source)
  • Because she is a power, and it is servile to accept her, to reconcile oneself to her—that is, to reconcile oneself to her inwardly.†   (source)
  • It took her back to the few weeks in which she had collected—or rather had received— almost with the air of a domestic, four-fifty per week from a lordly foreman in a shoe factory—a man who, in distributing the envelopes, had the manner of a prince doling out favors to a servile group of petitioners.†   (source)
  • They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were their equals.†   (source)
  • He wondered how his father, whom he knew for a shrewd suspicious man, could be duped by the servile manners of the porter; and the lively southern speech which had entertained him all the morning now irritated his ears.†   (source)
  • Philip looked at his own portrait of Ruth Chalice, and now that three months had passed he realised that it was no more than a servile copy of Lawson.†   (source)
  • He looked at it without anger; for, though sloth of the body and of the soul crept over it like unseen vermin, over the shuffling feet and up the folds of the cloak and around the servile head, it seemed humbly conscious of its indignity.†   (source)
  • They are not loyal, they are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, only patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive;…†   (source)
  • He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile, but tonight, the man tells me, he was quite haughty.†   (source)
  • Knowing that the slightest frown was sufficient to terrify and cow the pitiful, sensitive fellow, he tolerated Wehsal's servile habit of seizing every opportunity to bow and scrape, sometimes allowed him to carry his overcoat on their promenades—and Wehsal would bear it over one arm with a kind of reverence—and even put up with the Mannheimer's conversation, and very gloomy conversation it was.†   (source)
  • Even the said great personages dying in bed, making exemplary ends and sounding speeches; and polite history, more servile than their instruments, embalming them!†   (source)
  • Our servile rabble applauded, but I attacked him, not from compassion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they were applauding such an insect.†   (source)
  • …indigence, Casimir Perier dead in the exhaustion of his power; political and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the kingdom, the one in the city of thought, the other in the city of toil; at Paris civil war, at Lyons servile war; in the two cities, the same glare of the furnace; a crater-like crimson on the brow of the people; the South rendered fanatic, the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in la Vendee, plots, conspiracies, risings, cholera, added the…†   (source)
  • He liked to put himself forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them.†   (source)
  • In the most cultured sections and cities of the South the Negroes are a segregated servile caste, with restricted rights and privileges.†   (source)
  • Nay, more, everything shows that those of the ancients who had passed from the servile to the free condition, many of whom have left us excellent writings, did themselves regard servitude in no other light.†   (source)
  • "I shall vote for the appointment of Mr. Tyke, but I should not have known, if Mr. Hackbutt hadn't hinted it, that I was a Servile Crawler."†   (source)
  • This low abject brood, That fix their seats in mediocrity, Become your servile minds; but we advance Such virtues only as admit excess, Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence, All-seeing prudence, magnanimity That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue For which antiquity hath left no name, But patterns only, such as Hercules, Achilles, Theseus.†   (source)
  • Tom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her son with all the wheedling and supplication servilities that fear and interest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave.†   (source)
  • What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions!†   (source)
  • This state of mind displays itself in their manners and language; they are at once insolent and servile.†   (source)
  • His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a thousand servilities that had only estranged him the more.†   (source)
  • It might," said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, "to a common person, have the appearance of repeating— but may I—?"†   (source)
  • He was just proud enough to demand the most debasing homage of the slave, and quite servile enough to crouch, himself, at the feet of the master.†   (source)
  • Legree had told them, at first, that he had bought him for a general overseer, in his absence; and this had begun an ill will, on their part, which had increased, in their debased and servile natures, as they saw him becoming obnoxious to their master's displeasure.†   (source)
  • His abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained.†   (source)
  • The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or possessions.†   (source)
  • Every partaker of his magnificent feasts would be seen to have been a sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes; every servile worshipper of riches who had helped to set him on his pedestal, would have done better to worship the Devil point-blank.†   (source)
  • From his arms next issued the Kshatriya, or warriors; from his breast, the seat of life, came the Vaisya, or producers—shepherds, farmers, merchants; from his foot, in sign of degradation, sprang the Sudra, or serviles, doomed to menial duties for the other classes—serfs, domestics, laborers, artisans.†   (source)
  • The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men?†   (source)
  • This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall; Lord of himself though not of lands; And having nothing yet hath all.†   (source)
  • There might be some sort of servitude in France at that time, but assuredly there was no servile spirit among the people.†   (source)
  • They are not servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom they are free in manner and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious.†   (source)
  • This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, "May I?" and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the same fat five fingers.†   (source)
  • …it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise them up a little way…†   (source)
  • Boris belonged to the latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutuzov, could so create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that Bennigsen managed everything.†   (source)
  • These men, whose destiny is to obey, certainly do not understand fame, virtue, honesty, and honor in the same manner as their masters; but they have a pride, a virtue, and an honesty pertaining to their condition; and they have a notion, if I may use the expression, of a sort of servile honor.†   (source)
  • The American lauds as a noble and praiseworthy ambition what our own forefathers in the Middle Ages stigmatized as servile cupidity, just as he treats as a blind and barbarous frenzy that ardor of conquest and martial temper which bore them to battle.†   (source)
  • I shall not remark that the universal and inordinate desire for place is a great social evil; that it destroys the spirit of independence in the citizen, and diffuses a venal and servile humor throughout the frame of society; that it stifles the manlier virtues: nor shall I be at the pains to demonstrate that this kind of traffic only creates an unproductive activity, which agitates the country without adding to its resources: all these things are obvious.†   (source)
  • He wants his attendants to form regular and permanent habits, in a condition of domestic service which is only temporary: he requires that they should appear contented with and proud of a servile condition, which they will one day shake off—that they should sacrifice themselves to a man who can neither protect nor ruin them—and in short that they should contract an indissoluble engagement to a being like themselves, and one who will last no longer than they will.†   (source)
  • He contrasts the independence which he possessed amongst his equals with the servile position which he occupies in civilized society.†   (source)
  • This may be explained by analogy; despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the king has often great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile.†   (source)
  • Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who oppress him: his understanding is degraded to the level of his soul.†   (source)
  • The negress was seated on the ground before her mistress, watching her smallest desires, and apparently divided between strong affection for the child and servile fear; whilst the savage displayed, in the midst of her tenderness, an air of freedom and of pride which was almost ferocious.†   (source)
  • Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they have maintained the blacks in a subordinate or a servile position; wherever the negroes have been strongest they have destroyed the whites; such has been the only retribution which has ever taken place between the two races.†   (source)
  • In the theatres, gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as the whites, it must be at a different altar, and in their own churches, with their own clergy.†   (source)
  • *o [Footnote o: At this time Alexander Hamilton, who was one of the principal founders of the Constitution, ventured to express the following sentiments in "The Federalist," No.71:— "There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in the Legislature, as its best recommendation.†   (source)
  • The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and of intelligence.†   (source)
  • To compose a letter which might at once do justice to her sentiments and her situation, convey gratitude without servile regret, be guarded without coldness, and honest without resentment—a letter which Eleanor might not be pained by the perusal of—and, above all, which she might not blush herself, if Henry should chance to see, was an undertaking to frighten away all her powers of performance; and, after long thought and much perplexity, to be very brief was all that she could…†   (source)
  • From imposition of strict laws to free
    Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear
    To filial;   (source)
    servile = excessively submissive -- with no self-respect
  • I call you servile ministers   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • keep us all in servile fearfulness   (source)
    servile = slave-like
  • ...thou art servile to all the...   (source)
    servile = submissive
  • But it is impossible to express his noble resentment at our savage treatment of the Houyhnhnm race; particularly after I had explained the manner and use of castrating horses among us, to hinder them from propagating their kind, and to render them more servile.   (source)
  • If I can't do it, I'll fake it …. and yet I could never forgive my own servility If I kept loving one who abandoned me.†   (source)
  • Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the sanctity of their lives; had never been compliers with the times, while they were common priests; or slavish prostitute chaplains to some nobleman, whose opinions they continued servilely to follow, after they were admitted into that assembly?†   (source)
  • Jones could not so far check his disdain, but that it a little discovered itself in his countenance at this extreme servility.†   (source)
  • Such hast thou armed, the minstrelsy of Heaven, Servility with freedom to contend, As both their deeds compared this day shall prove.†   (source)
  • And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more than thou Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored Heaven's awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope To dispossess him, and thyself to reign?†   (source)
  • This being indeed the means which they use to recompense to themselves their extreme servility and condescension to their superiors; for nothing can be more reasonable, than that slaves and flatterers should exact the same taxes on all below them, which they themselves pay to all above them.†   (source)
  • To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised (I January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails.†   (source)
  • But between 1780 and 1790, according to Grandgent, a sudden fashion for the broad /a/ (not the /aw/-sound, as in /fall/, but the Continental sound as in /far/) arose in England,[48] and this fashion soon found servile imitation in Boston.†   (source)
  • The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the…†   (source)
  • To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.†   (source)
  • Some take the broad road of overweening ambition; others that of mean and servile flattery; others that of deceitful hypocrisy, and some that of true religion; but I, led by my star, follow the narrow path of knight-errantry, and in pursuit of that calling I despise wealth, but not honour.†   (source)
  • If, by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined, and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine, that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness of a father, He has given us a greater licence to cruelty than He did to the Jews.†   (source)
  • …end had the Jewes every seventh day, a Sabbath, in which the Law was read and expounded; and in the solemnity whereof they were put in mind, that their King was God; that having created the world in six days, he rested the seventh day; and by their resting on it from their labour, that that God was their King, which redeemed them from their servile, and painfull labour in Egypt, and gave them a time, after they had rejoyced in God, to take joy also in themselves, by lawfull recreation.†   (source)
  • Hence they have been able to excel all who have gone before them; a degree of merit which the servile herd of imitators can never possibly arrive at.†   (source)
  • There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in the legislature, as its best recommendation.†   (source)
  • Fear not that I shall watch, with servile shame, Th' imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame; Or, stooping to the victor's lust, disgrace My goddess mother, or my royal race.†   (source)
  • Thro' Elis and the Grecian towns he flew; Th' audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew: He wav'd a torch aloft, and, madly vain, Sought godlike worship from a servile train.†   (source)
  • …of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they cheerfully, and of their own accord, take that to their share; and by that means, as they ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole life in hard labour: and yet they do not value themselves upon this, nor lessen other people's credit to raise their own; but by their stooping to such servile employments they are so far from being despised, that they are so much the more esteemed by the whole nation.†   (source)
  • The reader may remember, that when I signed those articles upon which I recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of their being too servile; neither could anything but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit.†   (source)
  • Turnus, 't is true, in this unequal strife, Shall lose, with honor, his devoted life, Or change it rather for immortal fame, Succeeding to the gods, from whence he came: But you, a servile and inglorious band, For foreign lords shall sow your native land, Those fruitful fields your fighting fathers gain'd, Which have so long their lazy sons sustain'd."†   (source)
  • In reality, I apprehend every amorous widow on the stage would run the hazard of being condemned as a servile imitation of Dido, but that happily very few of our play-house critics understand enough of Latin to read Virgil.†   (source)
  • Suppose he should relent And publish grace to all, on promise made Of new subjection; with what eyes could we Stand in his presence humble, and receive Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing Forced hallelujahs, while he lordly sits Our envied sovereign, and his altar breathes Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers, Our servile offerings?†   (source)
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