Dictionaries › English

serve

Pronunciation: /sɜːv/

The English word “serve” has 20 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To be a formal servant for (a god or deity); to worship in an official capacity.
  2. To be a servant for; to work for, to be employed by.
  3. To wait upon (someone) at table; to set food and drink in front of, to help (someone) to food, meals etc.
  4. To render service by being a servant, worker, employee, or officeholder; to hold those roles and perform their duties.
  5. To set down (food or drink) on the table to be eaten; to bring (food, drink) to a person.
  6. To treat (someone) in a given manner.
  7. To be suitor to; to be the lover of.
  8. To be useful to; to meet the needs of.
  9. To have a given use or purpose; to function for something or to do something.
  10. To usefully take the place as, instead of something else.
  11. To officially deliver (a legal notice, summons etc.).
  12. To make legal service upon (a person named in a writ, summons, etc.)
  13. To lead off with the first delivery over the net in tennis, volleyball, ping pong, badminton etc.
  14. To copulate with (of male animals); to cover.
  15. To be in military service.
  16. To work, to operate (a weapon).
  17. To work through (a given period of time in prison, a sentence).
  18. To wind spun yarn etc. tightly around (a rope or cable, etc.) so as to protect it from chafing or from the weather.
  19. To perform (a public obligation).
  20. To provide crack cocaine (to), usually by selling, dealing, or distributing.

Etymology

From Middle English serven, from Old French servir, from Latin serviō (“be a slave; serve”), from Latin servus (“slave; servant”), which perhaps derives from Etruscan (compare Etruscan proper names 𐌔𐌄𐌓𐌅𐌉 (servi), 𐌔𐌄𐌓𐌅𐌄 (serve)), or from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“watch over, protect”).

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “serve” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.