servant

Forms

servant m (oblique plural servanz or servantz, nominative singular servanz or servantz, nominative plural servant); feminine servante^[1][2]

• siervant, sirvent, servaunt^[3]

Etymology

It is from Old French servir (“to serve”), the present participle of the verb used as a noun and an adjective.^[4][5] The bare participle belongs to the verb, which continues Latin serviō (“to be a slave, serve”), itself formed from servus (“slave”).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Vie de saint Alexis, about 1090 by the DEAF's dating of the poem and about 1050 by the TLFi's, where the noun is used of a servant of God.^{[4][8][9][10]}

Semantic evolution

The religious sense lasted to the 12th century.^[4] About 1140 the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne uses it for a household servant, the sense the word kept until the 16th century, and before 1224 Moniot d'Arras uses it for a lover in the service of a lady.^[4] Greimas and Tobler–Lommatzsch add a lay brother, frere servant, and Wace uses it for foot soldiers.^[11][12] The feminine servante named a maidservant.^[2]

As an adjective it meant “serving, attentive, useful”.^[13][1] In Middle French the adjective also meant “in servitude”.^[14] The modern word is French servant, used since 1812 of an artillery gunner and of a server at Mass.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1090 – “servant of God” in the Vie de saint Alexis (about 1050 by the TLFi's dating).^[10][8][4]
• 1100–1125 – in Benedeit's Voyage de saint Brendan.^[12][15]
• 1121–1125 – the first Anglo-Norman citation in the AND.^[16]
• c. 1140 – “servant” in the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne.^[4]
• before 1224 – “lover serving a lady” in Moniot d'Arras.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. a servant, domestic, attendant; one in servitude.^[16][12]
2. a servant or follower of God.^[4][16]
3. a foot soldier, man-at-arms.^[16][11]
4. frere servant: a lay brother.^[11][12]
5. an apprentice or assistant; a merchant's agent.^[16]
6. a lover devoted to a lady.^[4]

Adjective

1. serving; fulfilling a role, useful.^[1][13]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the noun servant, first cites it from 1121–1125, and gives the senses of servant and domestic, follower of God or of the Devil, apprentice or workman's assistant, merchant's agent, and foot soldier.^[16] Middle English servaunt comes from Old French servant and servent, with the Anglo-French servaunt, and is recorded from about 1200; it is the English servant.^[3][5]

Descendants

• French servant^[4]
• Middle English servaunt (borrowed; → English servant)^[3][5]

Related words

• servir
• serf

Usage notes

Wiktionary lists servant under the verb servir as its present participle;^{[1][12][13][16]} Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy and the AND head the noun servant on its own.^{[1][12][13][16]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 9:559
3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. servir
7. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 628
8. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. AlexisZ
9. ^ UD Old French PROFITEROLE and UD Middle French PROFITEROLE treebanks, Universal Dependencies (from the SRCMF and the Base de français médiéval; texts by DEAF siglum), p. AlexisZ
10. ^ a b Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. AlexisS1
11. ^ a b c Greimas, Algirdas Julien (1979), Dictionnaire de l'ancien français jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle, 2nd ed., Paris: Larousse (printing of 1988), p. s.v. servant
12. ^ a b c d e f Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 9:558
13. ^ a b c d Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon, p. 7:400
14. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. servant
15. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. BrendanW
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. servant