Adjacent Words

Menial definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ME'NIAL, a.
1. Pertaining to servants or domestic servants; low; mean.
The women attendants perform only the most menial offices.
[Johnson observes on this passage, that Swift seems not to have known the meaning of this word. But this is the only sense in which it is now used.]
2. Belonging to the retinue or train of servants.
Two menial dogs before their master pressed.
[If this definition of Johnson is correct,it indicates that menial is from meinez, many, rather than from mesnie, family. But the sense may be house-dogs.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: used of unskilled work (especially domestic work) [syn: humble, menial, lowly] n
1: a domestic servant

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Date: 14th century a person doing menial work; specifically a domestic servant or retainer II. adjective Etymology: Middle English meynial, from Anglo-French meignal, from mesnee, mayné household, retinue, from Vulgar Latin *mansionata, from Latin mansion-, mansio dwelling — more at mansion Date: 15th century 1. of or relating to servants ; lowly 2. a. appropriate to a servant ; humble, servile <answered in menial tones> b. lacking interest or dignity <a menial task> • menially adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. --adj. 1 (esp. of unskilled domestic work) degrading, servile. 2 usu. derog. (of a servant) domestic. --n. 1 a menial servant. 2 a servile person. Derivatives: menially adv. Etymology: ME f. OF meinee household

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Menial Men"ial, a. [OE. meneal, fr. meine, maine, household, OF. maisni['e]e, maisnie, LL. mansionaticum. See Mansion, and cf. Meine, n., Meiny.] 1. Belonging to a retinue or train of servants; performing servile office; serving. Two menial dogs before their master pressed. --Dryden. 2. Pertaining to servants, esp. domestic servants; servile; low; mean. `` Menial offices.'' --Swift.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Menial Men"ial, n. 1. A domestic servant or retainer, esp. one of humble rank; one employed in low or servile offices. 2. A person of a servile character or disposition.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Menial work is very boring, and the people who do it have a low status and are usually badly paid. ...low paid menial jobs, such as cleaning and domestic work. ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. a. Servile, low, mean, base. II. n. Servant, domestic, waiter, attendant, lackey, underling, flunky, understrapper, valet, footman, slave, serf, bondsman.

Moby Thesaurus

attendant, attending, base, blue-collar worker, bootlicker, breadwinner, brown-nosing, casual, casual laborer, common laborer, cringing, day laborer, degrading, demeaning, domestic, domestic servant, drudge, employee, factory worker, fag, fawning, flattering, flunky, free lance, free-lancer, full-time worker, gofer, hand, help, helping, humble, ignoble, industrial worker, jobber, jobholder, laborer, laboring man, lackey, leech, lickspittle, low, lowly, mean, migrant, minion, ministering, moiler, navvy, obeisant, obsequious, office temporary, parasite, proletarian, roustabout, routine, salaried worker, scullion, self-employed person, serf, servant, servile, serving, servitor, servitorial, slave, slavey, slavish, stiff, submissive, subservient, sycophant, sycophantic, temporary, toady, toadying, toiler, turnspit, underling, unskilled, wage earner, wage slave, wageworker, waiting, worker, workgirl, workhand, working girl, workingman, workingwoman, workman, yes-man