Adjacent Words

Serf definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SERF, n. [L. servus.] A servant or slave employed in husbandry, and in some countries, attached to the soil and transferred with it. The serfs in Poland are slaves.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord [syn: serf, helot, villein]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: French, from Old French, from Latin servus slave Date: 1611 a member of a servile feudal class bound to the land and subject to the will of its owner • serfage noun • serfdom noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 hist. a labourer not allowed to leave the land on which he worked, a villein. 2 an oppressed person, a drudge. Derivatives: serfage n. serfdom n. serfhood n. Etymology: OF f. L servus slave

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Serf Serf, n. [F., fr. L. serus servant, slave; akin to servare to protect, preserve, observe, and perhaps originally, a client, a man under one's protection. Cf. Serve, v. t.] A servant or slave employed in husbandry, and in some countries attached to the soil and transferred with it, as formerly in Russia. In England, at least from the reign of Henry II, one only, and that the inferior species [of villeins], existed . . . But by the customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if injured by him. --Hallam. Syn: Serf, Slave. Usage: A slave is the absolute property of his master, and may be sold in any way. A serf, according to the strict sense of the term, is one bound to work on a certain estate, and thus attached to the soil, and sold with it into the service of whoever purchases the land.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(serfs) In former times, serfs were a class of people who had to work on a particular person's land and could not leave without that person's permission. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Slave (attached to the soil), bondman, thrall, bond-servant, villein.

Moby Thesaurus

apple-polisher, ass-licker, backscratcher, backslapper, bondmaid, bondman, bondslave, bondsman, bondswoman, bootlick, bootlicker, brown-nose, brownie, captive, chattel, chattel slave, churl, clawback, concubine, courtier, creature, cringer, debt slave, dependent, dupe, fawner, feudatory, flatterer, flunky, follower, footlicker, galley slave, groveler, handshaker, hanger-on, helot, homager, inferior, instrument, jackal, kowtower, lackey, led captain, lickspit, lickspittle, liege, liege man, liege subject, mealymouth, minion, myrmidon, odalisque, peon, puppet, retainer, servant, slave, spaniel, stooge, subject, subordinate, suck, sycophant, theow, thrall, timeserver, toad, toady, tool, truckler, tufthunter, underling, understrapper, vassal, villein, yeoman, yes-man