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Gulliver’s Travels vocabulary
327 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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servile
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synonyms: obsequious, morigerous ???
► definition
Definition:of or characteristic of a slave; submissive
► uses
Uses:
The richer sort, besides the slaves of both sexes whom they keep for servile uses in their houses, have men slaves who wait on them abroad, for state; either running by their horse-sides when they ride out, or to carry them to and fro on their shoulders in the town when they make short visits near home.
William Dampier. A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699
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‘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?’
George Orwell. 1984 (1949)
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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.
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
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He noticed that they whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind of awe and even servility.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman . Simon & Schuster
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"that's the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might," said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again,
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well.
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813)
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And remembering Kamala's words, he was never servile to the merchant, but compelled him to treat him as an equal and even more than his equal.
Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha (Translated by Hilda Rosner), p.66 (1951)
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