From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsubservientsub‧ser‧vi‧ent /səbˈsɜːviənt $ -ˈsɜːr-/ adjective 1 OBEYalways obeying another person and doing everything they want you to do – used when someone seems too weak and powerlesssubservient to Don remained entirely subservient to his father.subservient role/position His wife refused to accept a traditional subservient role.2 formalLESS less important than something else SYN subordinatesubservient to the rights of the individual are made subservient to the interests of the state —subserviently adverb —subservience noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
subservient• That is not to say that Parliament was subservient.• The waiter had an excessively subservient manner that made us very uncomfortable.• The truly subservient prisoner is respected by no-one, staff or inmates.• Away from the staff, the subservient prisoner will say what he really thinks.• Then we were off and running with subfreezing temperatures, submerging boats in the water, subservient, subterranean.• This makes them subservient to a moral objective which may be unattainable.• What she hated about being a nurse was having to be so subservient to doctors.• Indeed she is such a kind and caring person that colleagues have questioned whether she is sometimes too subservient to her officials.• But as I have shown, the function of grammar depends upon its being subservient to lexis.• I have yet to hear of any document that says that people are subservient to the government.subservient to• The regime was subservient to the Soviet Union.Origin subservient (1600-1700) Latin present participle of subservire “to serve, be subservient”, from servire “to serve” 