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Subservient   /səbsˈərviənt/   Listen
Subservient

adjective
1.
Compliant and obedient to authority.
2.
Serving or acting as a means or aid.  Synonyms: implemental, instrumental.
3.
Abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant.  Synonyms: slavish, submissive.  "A slavish yes-man to the party bosses" , "She has become submissive and subservient"



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"Subservient" Quotes from Famous Books



... prided themselves on their aloofness are already fighting over European interests. In Europe every nation's hand is raised against its neighbors, and every people's hand against its ruling class. Every government is making its policy subservient to the needs of the future war which is universally looked upon as an unavoidable outcome of the Versailles peace. Imperialism and militarism are striking roots in soil where they were hitherto unknown. In a word, Prussianism, instead of being destroyed, has been openly ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the picture; it shews the pleasing features, and throws a veil over the blemishes: Mankind are naturally pleased with what gratifies their vanity; and vanity, like all other passions of the human heart, may be rendered subservient ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... only active in constructing and exploring in the spirit world, but he is also engaged in inventions. Most of the discoveries that have lessened manual labor and made gross matter subservient to man's use originated in the land of spirits. The inventor finds full field for his ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... expect to realize all our wishes, we must distinguish those which claim the rank of wants. We must separate the fanciful from the real, or at least make the one subservient to the other. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... from bad to worse in the Morley cabin. Martin forgot his prayers and ambitions; he grew subservient to Mary and never strove against her, even when her wrath and temper were directed toward him and Sandy. Discredited and disliked by his neighbours, flouted by the woman who had used him for her own gain, the man became a detestable and pitiable creature. Sandy endured the blows and ratings ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... nations, tyranny, oppression, and slavery are sure to prevail; and these personal accomplishments, so far from being of use to the owner, serve only to deprive her of liberty, and the society of her friends; to render her a degraded victim, subservient to the sensual gratification, the caprice, and the jealousy of tyrant man. Among savage tribes the labour and drudgery invariably fall heaviest on ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did he see? Did he see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible theories to appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no longer trying to grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of himself, therefore much despised by his late political associates? Did he see them, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... but the open rivalry and contention of these two opponents made the gash deep, and severed the city into the two parties of the people and the few. And so Pericles, at that time more than at any other, let loose the reins to the people, and made his policy subservient to their pleasure, contriving continually to have some great public show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession or other in the town to please them, coaxing his countrymen like children, with such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying. Besides that every year he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... and of all the arts—painting, music, sculpture—for the actor who is devoted to his profession is susceptible to every harmony of color, sound, and form—to do this is to labor in a large field of industry. But all your training, bodily and mental, is subservient to the two great principles in tragedy and comedy—passion and geniality. Geniality in comedy is one of the rarest gifts. Think of the rich unction of Falstaff, the mercurial fancy of Mercutio, the witty vivacity and manly humor of Benedick—think of the qualities, natural and acquired, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... the popular newspapers were alone in denouncing the judge for favoritism and in pointing out that the judiciary were "becoming subservient to the rich and the powerful in their rearrangements of their domestic relations—a long first step toward complete subservience." Herron happened to have among his intimates the editor of an eminently respectable newspaper that prides itself upon never publishing private scandals. He impressed ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... render such services, do not fail to pursue your scientific studies, that you may know the laws of nature, and make her forces subservient to the public welfare. Study carefully the history, institutions, and laws of your country, that you may be able to see and to defend what is lawful and right in every emergency. Study not only ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... convey any real opinions, being a purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view, to prefix them to this our primary edition, rather than await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... was subject: "If I were only a soul to be saved, he would save me; but I am also a body to be loved, and whether he loves me or not, he suffers. It is the eternal conflict of mind and matter, spirit and flesh, two prisoners chained together—the one despising the other, yet ruled by him, and subservient to the needs of ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... don't you go leading her astray. Politics are no metier for a woman, or they should be subservient to something else. Go marry, Agatha, and bring children into the world, and when you have reared them you can set up a political salon and theorise about the regeneration of humanity. Let Miss Gray do likewise. You play with these ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... interdependence of industrial operations as society increases in wealth, and that there is not a single industry which does not demand the use of products obtained by previous labor. "These auxiliary products accumulated with a view to the production to which they are subservient" form what is called capital. Carey ("Social Science," iii, page 48) regards as capital all things which in any way form the machinery by which society obtains wealth. Roscher's definition is, "Every product laid ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... system, though condemned by some, has been much extolled by many German writers. It is, say the latter, a warranty for the freedom of teaching, no slight point In a country where all is subservient to the political rulers, forming men for the professorship, and giving them a confidence in their own powers, as they must rely exclusively for their support on the income they receive from their hearers. From among their number are chosen those constituting the regular faculties; and thus there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... their resources without reserve or scruple for the purpose of destroying or crippling our peoples. Unless, therefore, we have the will and the means to mobilize our admittedly vaster facilities and materials and make these subservient to our aim, we are at a disadvantage which will profoundly influence the final result. It will be a source of comfort to optimists to think that, looking back on the vicissitudes of the first twenty ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... course to the law of elliptical, or, to speak more exactly, of conic-section, movement, permits of no doubt as to the condition of materiality. The comet is obviously drawn by the influence of the sun's mass, and is subservient to that all-pervading law of sympathetic gravitation that is the sustaining bond of the material universe. It is ponderable substance beyond all question, and held by that chain of physical connection which it was the glory of Newton to discover. If the comet were not a material ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... French were in the occupancy of the Canadas, having nothing to gain from them, they cultivated the alliance and friendship of the several nations, and by fostering, their fierce hostility against the English Colonists, rendered them subservient to their views. To-day the English stand precisely where the French did. Having little to expect from the Indians, but assistance in a case of need, they behold, and have for years beheld, with any thing but indifference, the struggle continued by the United States, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... judgment, rather than the eyes of his fellow-creatures, by a continual exercise of that gift of deceiving, with which he knew himself endued to an unrivalled degree; and to acquire unbounded influence with those who might be subservient to his interest, by an assiduous application to their prevailing passions. Not that play was altogether left out in the projection of his economy.— Though he engaged himself very little in the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... now added to the other miseries of Malaga. Hamet, with the spirit of a man bred up to war, considered everything as subservient to the wants of the soldier, and ordered all the grain in the city to be gathered and garnered up for the sole use of those who fought. Even this was dealt out sparingly, and each soldier received four ounces of bread in the morning and two in the evening ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... an inn on New-market road to be lett, they disguised themselves in proper habits for the persons they were to assume, and jointly took this inn, in which each in his turn officiated as master; but they soon made this subservient to purposes of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... conversation to the subject of LIBRARIES. The amiable stranger (for he was gaining upon me fast, by his unaffected manners and sensible remarks) answered, that "their own public library existed no longer—having been made subservient to the inquisitorial visit of M. Moysant of Caen[168]: that he had himself procured for the Bishop of Bayeux the Mentz Bible of 1462—and that the Chapter-Library of Bayeux, before the Revolution, could not have contained fewer than 40,000 volumes. "But you are doubtless acquainted, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... acknowledged to himself, departing from him. He looked the matter straight in the face, and told himself that his fashion must be abandoned; but the office remained to him. He might still rule over Mr Optimist, and make a subservient slave of Butterwell. That must be his line in life now, and to that line he would endeavour to be true. As to his wife and his home,—he would look to them for his breakfast, and perhaps his dinner. He would have a comfortable ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... cost is estimated at 125 million francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans—this talent for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive environment and making it subservient to purposes of human intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for "pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... and after reading Shelley's Revolt of Islam, all he has found to say is, "Poor Shelley, I think he has his quota of good qualities!" But, for the rest, he is not attracted to any kind of knowledge which cannot be "made applicable and subservient to the purposes of poetry,"—his own poetry. For his one desire is to win an immortal name—and he has begun life "full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, and ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at once beneath his ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... expressive look of gratitude. The senator was effectually silenced. He had come, by some inexplicable inference, to believe that Mrs. Cooke, while subservient to the despotic will of her husband, had been miraculously saved from depravity, and had set her face against this last ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... nothing would be more contrary to their wishes than that the absentees should return. They have no desire to share their influence with others; and hence it is that an excuse is always made for quarrelling with every resident who cannot be made subservient to their wishes; and while they steadily persevere in their system of annoyance and offence, they as lustily reiterate their lamentations on a state of things which their own conduct tends ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... serve for illustration: "I say this, that, when you consider of the breeding of your son, and are looking out for a schoolmaster, or a tutor, you would not have (as is usual) Latin and logic only in your thoughts. Learning must be had, but in the second place, as subservient only to greater qualities. Seek out somebody that may know how discreetly to frame his manners; place him in hands, where you may, as much as possible, secure his innocence, cherish and nurse up the good, and gently correct and weed out any bad inclinations, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... opposition, jealousy, distrust, running through the body, which, if the opportunity should present itself, and there were courage enough for the work, may show itself and make itself felt and respected. The senate, in a word, though slavish and subservient, is not friendly. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... deported to Paris. He was then placed by Bonaparte in a damp prison of the fortress of Joux on the chilly heights of Jura where he died. In September, 1802, the peoples of color took up arms against French domination under the leadership of General Dessalines and swore to die rather than remain subservient any longer.[8] By the end of 1793 Rochambeau, who on the death of General Leclerc was put in command by Bonaparte, was hard pressed in the city of Cape Haitien by black troops and was compelled to capitulate and "the power ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... discovered the extent of his own power, and that he is not even yet sufficiently aware of it. It depends entirely upon the exercise of his intelligence; the more, therefore, he observes and cultivates nature the more means he will find of making her subservient to him, and of drawing new riches from her bosom without diminishing the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... were dull and hideous become endowed with grace and beauty, and vegetable existence rises to the scale of celestial life. Then, too, Genius appears clad in a panoply of translucent armour, grasping in his hand the whole terrestrial surface, and making every rood of earth subservient to his purposes;—Genius, the child of Civilization, the mother of the Arts!" The last little bit, taken from the "Pedigree of Progress," had a great success, and all Barchester went to work with its hands and feet;—all Barchester, except that ill-natured aristocratic ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... experiments carried with the Magnetic Crescograph life becomes subservient to the will of the experimenter. The rate of growth is indicated by the speed with which a spot of indicating light moves across the scale. The actual rate of growth is fifty thousandth part of an inch per second; ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... mere panorama of social life. So intense is George Eliot's desire to dissect the human heart and discover its motives, that plot, diction, situations, and even consistency in the vocabulary of the characters, are all made subservient to it. With her it is not so much that the characters do thus and so, but why they do thus and so. Dickens portrays the behavior, George Eliot dissects the motive of the behavior. Here comes the human creature, says Dickens, now let us see how he will behave. Here comes the human creature, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... a moral revolution. The evils of a lax society have been rebuked in various ways. Intemperance and disorder have been made to stand out as such, and already a spirit of rendering the use, or rather misuse of time, subservient to the general purposes of social dissipation, has been shown to be unwise and immoral in every view. More than all, the Sabbath-day has been vindicated as a part of time set apart as holy. The claims and obligations of the decalogue have been ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... may be artfully managed; and the most apparently casual throw of the dice be made subservient to the purposes of chicanery and fraud, as will ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... is this power due to? How to develop it within yourself? Is it possible for everyone to acquire it? Has it or can it be put to any higher and nobler use than merely to enslave others' minds in order to make them subservient to your selfish purposes on the relative plane of existence? If so, what is that higher use? I know of a Christian gentleman, Mr. K. by name, who had been smitten with the young governess of a Magistrate ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... the Lawes, has been made in divers manners, according to the different methods, of those men that have written of them. For it is a thing that dependeth not on Nature, but on the scope of the Writer; and is subservient to every mans proper method. In the Institutions of Justinian, we find seven sorts of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... was a slim, stoop-shouldered man, gray, and a dynamo of energy in a quiet, subservient way. He ran to ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... my walks on the bank of the Manzanares, which was their favourite promenade. These children, at the time of which I am speaking, were receiving their education at a certain seminary in Madrid. Balseiro, being well acquainted with the father's affection for his children, determined to make it subservient to his own rapacity. He formed a plan which was neither more nor less than to steal the children, and not to restore them to their parent until he had received an enormous ransom. This plan was partly carried into execution: two associates of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... him, and converted to the Christian faith through the influence of Bradamante, that royal maiden with whom chance had brought him acquainted. Thinking to thwart the will of Heaven in this respect, he now put forth all his arts to entrap Rogero into his power. By the aid of his subservient demons he reared a castle on an inaccessible height, in the Pyrenean mountains, and to make it a pleasant abode to his pupil, contrived to entrap and convey thither knights and damsels many a one, whom chance had brought into the vicinity of his ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... What minister could gain his end? How could he raise his tools to place, And how his honest foes disgrace? That politician tops his part, Who readily can lie with art: The man's proficient in his trade; His power is strong, his fortune's made. 30 By that the interest of the throne Is made subservient to his own: By that have kings of old, deluded, All their own friends for his excluded. By that, his selfish schemes pursuing, He thrives upon the public ruin. Antiochus,[8] with hardy pace, Provoked the dangers of the chase; And, lost from all his menial train, Traversed the wood and ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike unostentatious and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liberty, of national independence and of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... companionship of men of kindred tastes and occupations; and to prevent intrusion, the meetings were for some time kept secret. When Richelieu came to hear of the existence of the society, desirous to make literature subservient to his political glory, he proposed to these gentlemen to form themselves into a corporation, established by letters patent, at the same time hinting that he had the power to put a stop to their secret ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... forces of nature, and worship of superior beings, gave rise to incantations. It was believed moreover that by the use of appropriate formulas these mysterious powers could be rendered subservient to the will of man. In the popular imagination, even the moon could be made to descend to the earth at the command of an enchantress, by means of an appropriate spell. For, as Virgil sang: Carmina vel possunt coelo ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... with disgust and contempt. There is like to be trouble, I fear, with some of these. There is bold De Gamache, for example, who declares he would sooner fold up his banner and serve as a simple soldier in the ranks, than hold a command subservient to that of ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the most striking difference is the extraordinary elongation in the male (Fig. 29) of the dorsal fin. Mr. W. Saville Kent remarks that this "singular appendage appears from my observations of the species in confinement, to be subservient to the same end as the wattles, crests, and other abnormal adjuncts of the male in gallinaceous birds, for the purpose of fascinating their mates." (13. 'Nature,' July 1873, p. 264.) The young males resemble the adult females in structure and colour. Throughout ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... manipulation. We weep, but know not why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with all other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more complete, more vast, and more permanent—the specific musical emotion of music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent emotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often undesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find their legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of the soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... wood, to be used in building" and joinery as "small work" or what "is called by the French, menuiserie." Martin enumerated 16 tools most useful to the carpenter and 21 commonly used by the joiner; in summary, he noted, as had Moxon, that "both these arts are subservient to architecture, being employed in raising, roofing, flooring and ornamenting buildings of ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh

... her name would have had her atrocious way with very little trouble even if the excellent Fynes had been able to do something. She would simply have bullied de Barral in a lofty style. There's nothing more subservient than an arrogant man when his arrogance has once been broken in some ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... while they permit the continuance of conditions leading ultimately to degeneration of tissue and to premature death. This is the moral which it is, we contend, the duty of the profession to draw from the daily events of life. The natural secretions of the human stomach are acid, and the acidity is subservient to the digestive functions. It cannot be superseded by artificial alkalinity without serious disturbance of nutrition; and the aim of treatment, in the case of all digestive derangements, should be to cure them by changing the conditions under which they arise, not to palliate them for ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... may then be sent, and the same course is followed, until all the force in the station have had their share. The ryot is afraid to resist. The police have tremendous powers for annoying and doing him harm. A crowd of subservient scoundrels always hangs round the station, dependents, relations, or accomplices. These harry the poor man who is unwise enough to resist the extortionate demands of the police. They take his cattle to the pound, foment strife ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... for a stipend, and, depend upon it, when he arrives at manhood, he will think that if he can secure so much a month for the rest of his life he will be perfectly happy. How would you like him to be a subservient old numskull, like ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... and others assist him in the chase, in exterminating wilder sorts, or banishing them from the haunts of civilization. Many, indeed, are injurious to him; but most of them, in some shape or other, he turns to his service. Of these there is none he has made more subservient to his purposes than the common ox, of which there is scarcely a part that he has not been able to convert into some useful purpose. Of the horns he makes drinking-vessels, knife-handles, combs, and boxes; and when they ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... one daughter died, and the healer was imprisoned for entering the house in defiance of the quarantine law. This case illustrates how the moral obligation may be distinctly repudiated because of religious prejudice. But even religious belief must be subservient to the laws governing the community in which a man chooses to live, and, so long as the residence continues, the laws governing quarantine, as all other laws, must be obeyed. In this case another count against parents may be found. Section 288 ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... consent alone never transfers property, nor causes the obligation of a promise (for the same reasoning extends to both), but the will must be expressed by words or signs, in order to impose a tie upon any man. The expression being once brought in as subservient to the will, soon becomes the principal part of the promise; nor will a man be less bound by his word, though he secretly give a different direction to his intention, and withhold the assent of his mind. But though the expression makes, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... unprotected either by law or public opinion. She is the property of her master, and her daughters are his property. They are allowed to have no conscientious scruples, no sense of shame, no regard for the feelings of husband, or parent; they must be entirely subservient to the will of their owner, on pain of being whipped as near unto death as will comport with his interest, or quite to death, if ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... numbers are placed on three sides and the type of print (latent or ink) noted at the bottom. In any case, the manner of numbering should be subservient to an explanation of the characteristics in an orderly sequence; and, if the situation warrants it, all of the points may be illustrated on a ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... of 2,000,000 guilders for two years only. The imposition of these taxes on the model of the alcabala had been part of a scheme for sweeping away all the provincial jurisdictions and rights and forming the whole of the Netherlands into a unified state, as subservient to despotic rule as was Castile itself. A greater centralisation of government had been the constant policy of the Burgundian and Habsburg rulers since the time of Philip the Good, a policy to be commended if carried out in a statesmanlike and moderate spirit without ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... of our age. It is by such measures statesmen may keep pace with the marvellous inventions, improvements, and discoveries which have quadrupled the capacity of man for production, made lightning subservient to his will, revealed to him new agencies of power hidden in the earth, and opened up to his enterprise all the dark places of the world. The people of the United States boast that they have done their full share in all this development; that they have grown ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what it is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal human ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... him, could be thick and soft and fluid. He put his arm round her, and she offered him her mouth, curled forward, obedient but unsmiling. Her hand, surrendered to his, lay limp in the hard clasp of it. He raised it as if weighing the powerless, subservient thing. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... him, if necessary, in a civil war. So the aristocracy put themselves under the protection of Pompey,—a successful but overrated general, who also aimed at supreme power, with the nobles as his supporters, not perhaps as Imperator, but as the agent and representative of a subservient Senate, in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... house of one of the patrons or patronesses, when your hostess or host may ask you if you would like to go to the Assembly or the Patriarchs'. If you have no other engagement for that evening—and I think it would be policy for you to make others subservient to this—you should reply that you would be delighted to do so. Your host or hostess will then say that he or she will send you a ticket. This may be one way, or you may receive a note asking if you are free for that particular date, whether "would you like to go to the Assembly?" etc., or ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... suppression of his work. Jesus knew the hearts of these men; he knew that while, in virtue of their office, they affected to expound and apply the divine law, and to rule the people in accordance with it, they were at once ignorant of God's word and tamely subservient to the passions of the people. To tear off, or rather to compel them with their own hands to tear off their cloak of hypocrisy, he addressed to them that question of wonderful simplicity but wonderful power, The baptism of John, whence was it? from ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... swells, of which there were many at Monte Carlo, flocked around her, attracted by her fresh young beauty and the girlish simplicity of her manners, she readily encouraged them; not because she cared particularly for their admiration, but because she meant to use them for her own purpose, and make them subservient to ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... interest in a subject, rather than to get long compositions necessitating home study and probably generating a dislike for written work. Attention is called to paragraphing and emphasis is laid upon both the form and the manner of writing, but form is made subservient to thought. The interrelation of Art Department helps the student to appreciate the need of good form in the appearance of a ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman

... of chronological confusion; such as the making Whitsun pastorals, Christian burial, Julio Romano, the Emperor of Russia, and Puritans singing psalms to hornpipes, all contemporary with the Oracle of Delphi; wherein actual things are but marshalled into an ideal order, so as to render Memory subservient to Imagination. In these and such points, it is enough that the materials be apt to combine among themselves, and that they agree in working out the issue proposed, the end thus regulating the use of the means. For a work of art, as such, should ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... keen, swift comparisons: he sports with truths, like a king tossing up his crown-jewels or Vishnu worlds in the 'Cosmogony of Menu,' and he dares do this because they are no longer his masters, because he has made them subservient to an end—the great end of the amelioration of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... removing and purging away the most gross scandalous sins, which are destructive to the power of godliness. God must, by his word and Spirit, purify men, and work in them the power of godliness. The church government which I plead for against him, is a means subservient and helpful, so far as removere prohibens, to remove that which apparently is impeditive and destructive to that purity ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... apprentices in Trinidad or Jamaica, than as slaves in Cuba? Infinitely more wretched! English philanthropy cuts a very suspicious figure, when, not content with neglecting the welfare of those whom she undertakes to protect, she thus attempts to made them subservient to national aggrandizement. The fate of the rescued slaves is scarcely better than that of the crews of the captured slave-vessels. The latter are landed on the nearest point of the African coast, where death by starvation or ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... he found it inconvenient to go to and fro between the College and Camlachie to attend to the type-foundry, and petitioned the Senate to build him a founding-house in the College grounds, basing his claim on their custom of giving accommodation to the arts subservient to learning, on his own services to the University in the matter of the Greek types before mentioned, and on his having undertaken, in spite of the discouraging results of that speculation, to cast a ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... that religion was true, for otherwise man would be in a more degraded position than the beasts of the field, which are not aware of their own wretchedness, then religion should be the principal occupation of man, to which all other pursuits should be subservient. The doom of eternity, and the fortunes of life, cannot be placed in competition. Our days should be pure, and holy, and heroic—full of noble thoughts and solemn sacrifice. Providence, in its wisdom, had decreed that the world should be divided ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... concerns, nor his making of all things work together for good to those who love him. Neither do I refuse to admit him either into our journies, or into our walks, or into our chambers, for he can make all the things we see subservient to our moral instruction, and his own glory. But I should be sorry to have him considered as a clock, that is to inform us about the times of our ordinary movements, or to make him a prompter in all our worldly concerns, or to oblige him to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... seemed the darkest. With the most prominent liberal and Puritan leaders imprisoned for their political opinions, like Sir John Eliot, or lying in prison, crushed under enormous fines, like Prynne; with the courts subservient to the royal will; with court preachers declaring the duty of passive obedience to the government; with Laud guiding the policy of the king in all ecclesiastical matters,—the state of the Puritans might well seem hopeless, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... volumes of his 'Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence', which were edited by Lord John Russell, in 1853. Moore was an excellent son, a good husband, an affectionate father, and to Byron a loyal friend, neither envious nor subservient. Clare, Hobhouse, and Moore were (Lady Blessington's 'Conversations', 2nd edition, 1850, pp. 393, 394) the only persons whose friendship Byron never disclaimed. He spoke of Moore ('ibid'., pp. 322, 323) as "a delightful companion, gay without being boisterous, witty without effort, comic ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... the instruction of poor men that he who neither gives nor receives a dowry on account of poverty, has a compensation; for the citizens of our state are provided with the necessaries of life, and wives will be less likely to be insolent, and husbands to be mean and subservient to them on account of property. And he who obeys this law will do a noble action; but he who will not obey, and gives or receives more than fifty drachmae as the price of the marriage garments if he be of the lowest, ...
— Laws • Plato

... fury, that is, the utter extirpation of religion. To that every question of empire was subordinate. They had rather domineer in a parish of atheists, than rule over a Christian world. Their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytising spirit, in which they were not ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... terrible past, and indulge their quiet hopes for the future. Very soon, indeed, the dream was dispelled; the tyranny proved to some unbearable; and some it vanquished in their highest part—their inward conscience—making them subservient when they might have shunned the danger altogether. But while the quiet interval lasted, it was like an Indian summer, prolonging the intellectual and tasteful beauty which was soon to be overwhelmed by the vulgar splendours ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... indeed, the object of making in time his factory entirely non-union. He said to himself that he would be dictated to by no labor organization under the sun, and that went a step beyond his uncle, inasmuch as the elder Lloyd had always made his own opinion subservient to good business policy; but Robert was younger and his blood hotter. It happened, also, a month later, when he began to see that business had fallen off considerably (indeed, it was the beginning of a period ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... does a natural good complexion of paint. And it is certain, that the opinion which has been prevalent for many ages, of the power granted to devils, of torturing human bodies and minds, has been several ways made subservient to the subtle designs of crafty men, to the very great detriment and shame of ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... name Bharam, hated the true believers, one of whom annually for several years past he had inveigled by his offers of instructing in the science of transmuting metals into his power; and after making him subservient to his purposes in procuring the ingredients necessary for his art, had treacherously put him to death, lest the secret should be divulged: such was now his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... regarded as a man of great forensic ability, but no legal attainments. He had scarcely acquired any practice, and no distinction whatever: so that his elevation to a post he was so inadequate to fill gave universal dissatisfaction, and was read as evidence that the Government of Ireland was subservient to an unscrupulous ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... was still subservient to that of England and it is not surprising that the new literary impulse from Germany should have found reflection on this side of the Atlantic. This foreign influence was further aided by direct contact with Europe. By the second or third decade of the last century the studies ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... Montana under this charge. In Seattle, Washington, an injunction was obtained restraining the mayor from closing down the new Union hall in that city under the new law. Thus it appeared that the nefarious plan of the employers and their subservient lawmaking adjuncts, to outlaw the lumber workers Union and to penalize the activities of its members, was to be doomed to an ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... verbs there can be no cases, declensions, moods, or conjugations. All this is performed by the addition of certain words expressive of a determinate meaning, which should not be considered as mere auxiliaries, or as particles subservient to other words. Thus, in the instance of rumah, a house; deri pada rumah signifies from a house; but it would be talking without use or meaning to say that deri pada is the sign of the ablative case of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... that, by a great majority, a wrong estimate is made of education. Is it not generally considered as a means which must be employed to accomplish some other purpose, and consequently made subservient and secondary to the employments of life? Is it not considered as being contained in books, and a certain routine of studies, which, when gone through with, is believed to be accomplished, and consequently laid by, to be used as interest may suggest or convenience demand? Education comprehends ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... was vexed and annoyed. Dennis had seemed, in his obscurity, a nice little bit of personal property, that she could use and order about as she pleased. He had been so subservient and eager to do her will, that she had never thought of him otherwise than as her "humble servant." But now her own hand had suddenly given him the role of a fine gentleman. Christine was too logical to think of continuing to order about a man who ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... win the affections of the tiger, the lion, or the huge elephant, and make them subservient to his wishes, but the setting hen is not susceptible to affection. You might as well love the Manitoba blizzard or try to quell the cyclone by looking calmly in its eye. The setting hen is filled with hatred for every living thing. She loves to ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... held high office in Albemarle, this law could never be passed. Therefore he determined to demand a strict oath of office from all who were elected to fill public positions. This determination was carried out. The Quakers were driven from the Assembly, which body, subservient to the new Governor, passed the law establishing the Church ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.—The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... materialists, philosophers, like our author, willingly confound the two things; to hear them reason, one would almost suppose that there was no difference between a dead man and a living one. Organization is subservient to life, ministers to it, manifests it,—supports it, if you please,—but does not constitute it. He must be a bolder man than we are, who will undertake to say what it is; but we can very safely declare what ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... solemn oath which he pledged for their security. His next employment was to find some specious pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by a person of the most sacred character. From the hands of the Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal scroll, affirmed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... merely an expedient by which our own piety may be cultivated? Is it not merely a power (that is, a stated antecedent accompanied by the idea of causation), but is it a transcendent power, accomplishing what no other power can, over-ruling all other agencies, and rendering them subservient to its own wonderful efficiency? I think there are few devout readers of the Bible to whom these questions are not frequently suggested. We ask them, but we do not often wait for an answer. These promises seem to us to be addressed ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... affection would triumph over ambition, till Napoleon himself communicated the cruel determination. With what abandonment of self she was wont to cast her whole dependence on Napoleon, may be seen in a letter addressed to Pope Pius VII. In it she says: "My first sentiment—one to which all others are subservient—is a conviction of my own weakness and incapacity. Of myself I am but little; or, to speak more correctly, my only value is derived from the extraordinary man to whom I am united. This inward conviction, which occasionally humbles my pride, eventually affords me some encouragement, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... grew calm enough to examine and admire the Christmas gifts upon which no expense had been spared. Much as we may ignore dress, and sinful as is an inordinate love for it, there is yet about it an influence for good, when the heart of the wearer is right, holding it subservient to all higher, holier affections. At least Helen Lennox found it so, when, clad in her new garments, which added so much to her good looks, she drove with Mrs. Banker, or returned Sybil Grandon's call, feeling that ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... appreciated the justice of the proceeding, only one or two making any fuss at all, and the others were very much ashamed of them. C. says he thinks that school has improved the children, too, their manners are improved, as have the grown people's,—less cringing and subservient, but more respectful and manly. Tim does not pull his forelock at every word he speaks, as he did last year, looking like a whipped dog, but looks you full in the face and speaks out as if he were not ashamed of himself, and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... sea-sickness, and, stretched at full length on the cabin sofa, I closed my eyes, and, allowing my thoughts to wander where they would, hoped to cheat myself out of my present discomfort; but nausea, like no other ill to which we are subservient, is not to be pacified, and I lay the whole night sensible of the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... pleasant things with a peculiar grace. He was, indeed, a very gentlemanly and courtly personage, and those who liked him were wont to declare, that it was not his fault if his countenance was somewhat forbidding. By some persons, indeed—as is frequently the case with people of weak and subservient characters—the very sneer upon his lip, and the authoritative frown upon his brow, were received as marks of dignity, and signs of a high and ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... of these particulars, the elements of the tale are identical in all versions, Eastern and Western: a talisman, by means of which its possessor can command unlimited wealth, &c.; its loss and the consequent disappearance of the magnificent palace erected by supernatural agents who are subservient to the owner of the talisman, and finally its recovery together with the restoration of the palace to its original situation. The Arabian tale is singular in the circumstance of the talisman (the Lamp) being recovered by ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... but the genius required to combine a successful battle with adversity with high proficiency in art is indeed a rare phenomenon. Carlyle says of such minds: "In a word, they willed one thing, to which all other things were subordinate, and made subservient, and therefore they accomplished it. The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces, and will rend nothing." It may, therefore, be affirmed that the greatest luminaries of the art world have ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... little thought, when he was giving evidence against Sally Delia, that he should himself be soon brought to public trial. He was in many respects of a good disposition; he loved his books, was affable and obliging to his schoolfellows, and subservient to his tutor; but then he was fond of getting into mischief, such as breaking church-windows, laying traps to throw people down, and was very ingenious at inventions of this kind. Whenever he was accused of anything ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... exercises for the relaxation of their minds from their studies, and for the preservation of health, from such exercises as have been frequently used by students for these purposes, to such manual labor as might be subservient to the support of the school, thereby effectually removing the deep prejudices, so universal in the minds of the Indians, against going ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... said, "is a large, diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene by virtue of his importance."[178] But Smollett presents ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... choking, searing shame of self-reproach that cannot be reasoned away, was dominant in his heart. He had laid down his arms—there were others who had never hoisted the flag of surrender. He had given up the fight and joined the ranks of the hopelessly subservient; in thousands of English homes throughout the land there were young hearts that had not forgotten, had not compounded, ...
— When William Came • Saki

... is well recognized by all, is wholly subservient to the conditions of trade, so far as edible commodities are concerned, throughout the world. Its beef, its corn, and its flour mainly come from America. Its teas, coffees, and spices mostly from other foreign nations, until latterly, when India and Ceylon have come ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... having been totally subservient in her movements night and day to the wishes of the Comtesse de Noailles, it will be readily conceived how great a shock this lady must have sustained on being informed one morning that the Dauphine had actually risen in the night, and her ladyship not by to witness a ceremony from which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... ballot-box, they voted in conventions and formed coalitions with women who wished to vote at the ballot-box." Mr. Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "An effort was made at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts society, which adjourned today, to make its annual report and its action subservient to the non-resistant movement, and through the votes of the women of Lynn and Boston it succeeded." A little later, January, 1839, Mr. Stanton wrote again to Mr. Goodell, as follows: "I have taken the liberty to show ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... origin in the impulse of Europeans. Tame-tame-hah, a chief, who had made himself conspicuous during the last and unfortunate visit of Cook to those islands, usurped the authority of king, subdued the neighbouring islands with an army of 16,000 men, and made his conquests subservient to his grand schemes of improvement. He knew the superiority of Europeans, and was proud to imitate them. Already, in 1796, when Captain Broughton visited those islands, the usurper sent to ask him whether he should salute him with great guns. He always ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... however, whose ambition it had hitherto been to figure as a modern Maecenas, even a subservient parliament declined the customary registration. The king, too, coming to his senses after the lapse of six weeks, so far yielded to the remonstrances of his more sensible courtiers as to recall his ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... question arises, what is the frond of a fern? Is it a mass of foliaceous growth containing certain lines of reproductive matter, or is it a distinct development from the axis, in which the reproductive organs are situated? Is it, or is it not, subservient to reproduction? Here again extensive examination ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... numerous a class, the estate of an absentee landlord presented an appropriate, and generally a safe field for action. The great principle of his life was, in every transaction that occurred, to make the interest of the landlord on one hand, and of the tenant on the other, subservient to his own. This was their rule, and the cunning and adroitness necessary to carry it into practical effect, were sometimes scarcely deemed worth concealment, so strong was their sense of impunity, and their disregard of what seldom took place—retribution. Indeed, the absence ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... already established in England, he gave a voice in this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong enough to demand a reckoning of all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... another ruler who had better intentions than he had. He lived only for his calling—as he viewed it. All his thoughts and longings were centred round Germany. His relations, pleasures and amusements were all subservient to the one idea of making and keeping the German people great and happy, and if good will were sufficient to achieve great things William II. would have achieved them. From the very beginning he was misunderstood. He made statements ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... of the moral and intellectual qualities which render him fit for his post. Therefore, the higher his position, the greater must be the degree of honor paid to him, expressed, as it is, in titles, orders and the generally subservient behavior of others towards him. As a rule, a man's official rank implies the particular degree of honor which ought to be paid to him, however much this degree may be modified by the capacity of the masses ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... freeborn man holds himself equal to his ruler, and allows no royalties or prerogatives to abridge his birthright of liberty. [49] Yet I have observed, that with all their passion for independence, the Somal, when subject to strict rule as at Zayla and Harar, are both apt to discipline and subservient to command. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... Syracuse, and felt that with its fall all the known powers of the earth would fall beneath them. They must have felt also that Athens, if repulsed there, must pause forever from her career of conquest, and sink from an imperial republic into a ruined and subservient community. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... tank contributes to the aggregate of three, Righteousness, Wealth and Pleasure. A tank is said to be properly excavated, if it is made on a piece of land that is inhabited by respectable persons. A tank is said to be subservient to all the four purposes of living creatures. Tanks, again, are regarded as constituting the excellent beauty of a country. The deities and human beings and Gandharvas and Pitris and Uragas and Rakshasas and even immobile beings—all resort to a tank full of water as their refuge. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... his subsequent career amply demonstrated. If he had been chosen Speaker he would doubtless have placed some of the Free Soil members on the Committees specified, but the whole power of his office would have been studiously subservient to the behests of the slave oligarchy; and nothing could excuse the conduct of Mr. Wilmot and his associates but their entire ignorance of his political character and antecedents. I regretted this affair most sincerely, for I knew Mr. Brown well, and could undoubtedly ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... and, both of us united in faith and love to Jesus Christ, and to His peculiar Interest in the world,-that must ground this work. And in that, if I have any peculiar interest which is personal to myself, which is not subservient to the public end, it were not an extravagant thing for me to curse myself, because I know God will curse me if I have." After quoting the 85th Psalm, he dismissed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson



Words linked to "Subservient" :   subserve, subordinate, subservience, subservientness, implemental, helpful, servile, slavish



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