servile.

1. Excessively submissive or eager to please someone treated as superior.

2. Relating to servants, slavery, or servitude in a historical usage.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• servile obedience
• a servile manner

On the page

His servile manner changed when the authority figure left.

She heard servile obedience in the carefully rehearsed answer.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror. Forms: Comparative more servile; superlative most servile where gradation is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.