different between servitor vs serf

English

Etymology

From Middle English servitour, borrowed from Latin serv?tor, from serv?re, present active infinitive of servi? (“I serve”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s??.v?.t??/, /?s??.v?.t??/
• AHD: /sûr'v?-tôr'/

Noun

servitor (plural servitors)

1. One who performs the duties of a servant.
   • 1927, The Saturday Evening Post (volume 200, page 150)

     He heard Rogers' voice raised in the reception room; he stepped to the doorway and saw his servitor arguing with an elderly and trampish man who had got in somehow.

2. One who serves in an army; a soldier.
3. (historical) An undergraduate who performed menial duties in exchange for financial support from his college, particularly at Oxford University.

Quotations

• 1884, W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida

  "You'll find no sizars here, or servitors/or other cruel distinctions meant to draw/a line 'twixt rich and poor"

• 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 22

  The servitors waxed silent, each lost in introspection, until the rattle of the Valmouth cab announced the expected guest.

Anagrams

• overstir

Latin

Etymology

From servus (“slave”) +? -tor

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ser?u?i?.tor/, [s??r?u?i?t??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ser?vi.tor/, [s?r?vi?t??r]

Noun

serv?tor m (genitive serv?t?ris); third declension

1. a servant, a servitor

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Descendants

References

• servitor in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• servitor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French serviteur, Italian servitore, Latin serv?tor, equivalent to servi +? -tor.

Noun

servitor m (plural servitori, feminine equivalent servitoare)

1. servant, attendant, domestic, retainer, manservant

Synonyms

• slug?

English

Etymology

From Middle English serf, from Old French serf, from Latin servus (“slave, serf, servant”), perhaps of Etruscan origin

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /s??f/
• (US) IPA^(key): /s?f/
• Homophone: surf (in accents with the fern-fir-fur merger)
• Rhymes: -??(?)f

Noun

serf (plural serfs)

1. a partially free peasant of a low hereditary class, attached like a slave to the land owned by a feudal lord and required to perform labour, enjoying minimal legal or customary rights
2. a similar agricultural labourer in 18th and 19th century Europe
3. (strategy games) a worker unit

   Synonyms: peasant, peon, villager

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• slave

Anagrams

• ESRF, FERS, RFEs, Refs, erfs, f***ers, refs

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin servus.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?se?f/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /?serf/

Noun

serf m (plural serfs, feminine serva)

1. serf

Related terms

• servitud

Further reading

• “serf” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch serf, from Old French serf, from Latin servus.

Noun

serf m (plural serven, diminutive serfje n)

1. a serf (semifree peasant obliged to remain on the lord's land and to perform extensive chores for him)

   Synonyms: horige, laat, lijfeigene

French

Etymology

From Middle French serf, from Old French serf, from Latin servus (“slave, serf, servant”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser-wo- (“guardian”), or perhaps of Etruscan origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (predominant) /s??f/, (rarely) /s??/
• Homophones: cerf, sers, sert

Noun

serf m (plural serfs, feminine serve)

1. a serf (semifree peasant obliged to remain on the lord's land and to perform extensive chores for him)

Adjective

serf (feminine singular serve, masculine plural serfs, feminine plural serves)

1. being or like a serf, semifree

Related terms

Further reading

• “serf” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• fers

Mauritian Creole

Etymology

From French cerf.

Noun

serf

1. deer

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French serf.

Noun

serf m (plural serfs)

1. serf (semifree peasant)

Descendants

• French: serf

Old French

Etymology 1

From Latin servus.

Noun

serf m (oblique plural sers, nominative singular sers, nominative plural serf)

1. serf (semifree peasant)

Descendants

• Middle French: serf
  • French: serf
• ? English: serf

Etymology 2

See servir

Verb

serf

1. first-person singular present indicative of servir

Seychellois Creole

Etymology

From French cerf.

Noun

serf

1. deer

References

• Danielle D’Offay et Guy Lionnet, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français