serving-man 
Where 's the cook ? is supper ready ? ... the serving-men 
in their new fustian? Shak., 1. of the S., iv. 1. 49. 
2f. A professed lover. See servant, 4. 
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind, that curled 
my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my 
mistress' heart Shak., Lear, iii. 4. 87. 
serviOUSt, . [< ME. m-rri/mcue, < OF. xerveux, 
serving (used as a noun), < neifir, serve: see 
.srm- 1 .] Obsequjous. Prompt. Parr., p. 453. 
servisablet, seryiset. Middle English forms of 
m-rricriihle, service 1 . 
Servite (ser'vlt), . [< ML. Scrritx (also called 
Ki-rri beatse Mariee), < L. senus, servant : see 
serf, serve 1 .'} One of a mendicant order of 
monks and nuns, entitled the Religious Servants 
of the Holy Virgin, founded in Italy in the thir- 
teenth century, and following the Augustine 
rule. By Innocent VIII. it was granted privi- 
leges and prerogatives equal to those enjoyed 
by the other mendicant orders, 
servitium (ser-vish'i-um), n. [L. : see service 1 .] 
In law, service ; servitude. 
servitor (ser'vi-tor), . [Early mod. E. also 
servitour; < ME. servitOHr, servytour, < OF. ser- 
ritour, serviteur, < F. serviteur = Pr. Sp. Pg. ser- 
vidor = It. servidore, servitore,<. LL. servitor, one 
who serves, < L. sereire, serve : see serve 1 .] One 
who serves or attends; a subordinate; a fol- 
lower; an adherent. 
"No 'maister,' sire," quod he, "but servitour." 
Chaucer, Suminoner's Tale, 1. 485. 
Come, I have heard that fearful commenting 
Is leaden servitor to dull delay. 
Shak., Rich. HI., iv. 3. 52. 
His words (by what I can expresse) like so many nimble 
and airy servitors trip about him at command. 
Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus. 
Specifically (a) A male domestic servant ; a menial. 
Se that ye haue seruytours semely the dlsches for to 
here. Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 163. 
There sat the lifelong creature of the house, 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor. 
Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine. 
(6t) One who serves in the army ; a soldier. 
Of these souldiers thus trained the Isle it selfe is able 
to bring forth into the field 4000. And at the instant of 
all assaies appointed there bee three thousand more of 
most expert and practiced servitours out of Hampshire. 
Holland, tr. of Camden, p. 275. (Davies.) 
I have been a poor servitor by sea and land any time 
this fourteen years, and followed the fortunes of the best 
commanders in Christendom. 
B. Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, ii. 2. 
(<:) Formerly, in Oxford University, an undergraduate who 
was partly supported by the college funds, who was distin- 
guished by peculiar dress, and whose duty it was to wait 
at table on the fellows and gentlemen commoners. This 
class of scholars no longer exists, and practically has not 
existed for a century. The statement of Thackeray below 
is inexact, inasmuch as the Oxford servitors did not corre- 
spond to the Cambridge sizars, but to the subsizars. 
The term subsizar became forgotten, and the sizar was 
supposed to be the same as the servitor. 
Gentleman's Magazine for 1787, p. 1147. 
The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps are 
called sizars servitors at Oxford (a very pretty and gen- 
tleman-like title). A distinction is made in their clothes 
becaus/ they are poor ; for which reason they wear a 
badge/bf poverty, and are not allowed to take their meals 
with their fellow-students. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, xiii. 
(dt) One who professes duty or service : formerly used in 
phrases of civility. 
With a constant Perseverance of my hearty desires to 
serve your Lordship, I rest, my Lord, Your most humble 
Servitor. Howell, Letters, I. vi. 23. 
servitorship (ser'yi-tor-ship), w. [< servitor + 
-ship.] The position of a servitor. See servi- 
tor (c). 
Dr. Johnson, by his interest with Dr. Adams, master of 
Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was educated for 
some time, obtained a servitorship for young M'Aulay. 
Boswell, Tour to the Hebrides. 
servitude (s6r'vi-tud), n. [< ME. scrvitute, < 
OF. servitute, servituit, servitu, servitude, F. ser- 
vitude = Pr. servitut = OSp. servitud = Pg. ser- 
vidSo = It. seri'itil, < L. servitudo (-din-), mixed 
in Rom. with servitu(t-)s, servitude, < servus, a 
slave: see serf, serve 1 .] 1. The condition of a 
slave or servant; the state of subjection to a 
master; slavery; bondage. 
Jeroboam and all Israel came and spake to Rehoboam, 
saying, . . . Ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude 
of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us. 
2 Cnron. x. 4. 
You would have sold your king to slaughter, 
His princes and his peers to servitude. 
Shak., Hen. V., ii. 2. 171. 
To the victor, it was supposed, belonged the lives of his 
captives; and. by consequence, he might bind them in 
perpetual servitude. Sumner, Orations, I. 214. 
The right of the citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or 
any State on account of race, color, or previous condition 
of servitude. Const, of U. S., 15th Amendment, 1. 
2. Menial service or condition. 
5519 
Sheila . . . devoted all her time to waiting upon her 
two guests, until Lavender could scarcely eat, through 
the embarrassment produced by her noble sermtude. 
W. Black, A Princess of Thulc, v. 
3. Compulsory service or labor, such as a crim- 
inal has to undergo as a punishment: as, penal 
wrritude. See penal. 
When you were a little familiar with colonial phraseol- 
ogy you at once understood that . . . Giles had "left his 
country for his country'! good," not of his own free will, 
anil was what was called a "free by servitude man " i. e., 
a convict whose sentence of transportation had expired. 
Nineteenth Century, XXVI. 705. 
4. Service rendered in duty performed in the 
army or navy. Compare service 1 , 6. [Specific 
Anglo-Indian use.] 5. A state of spiritual, 
moral, or mental bondage or subjection ; com- 
pulsion ; subordination. 
In greet lordshipe, if I wel avyse, 
Ther is greet servitute in sondry wyse : 
I may nat don as euery plowman may. 
Chaucer, Clerk's Tale, 1. 742. 
Though it is necessary that some persons in the world 
should be in love with a splendid servitude, yet certainly 
they must be much beholding to their own fancy that they 
can be pleased at it. South. 
6f. Servants collectively. 
After him a cumbrous train 
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude. 
Milton, P. L., xiL 132. 
7. In law, the burden of an easement ; the con- 
dition of a tenement which is subject to some 
right of enjoyment by another than the owner 
of the tenement, in virtue of his ownership of 
another tenement. (See easement.) inRomanlaw, 
a right to use or deal with, in a given and definite man- 
ner, a thing belonging to another. As to real estate, it is 
nearly equivalent or correlative to the easement of the 
common law, except that it also embraces rights to take 
the fruits of the servient estate, which in English law are 
not called easements, but profits d prendre. Affirmative 
servitude. See negative servitude, below. Discontinu- 
ous servitude, In law, an easement which consists in the 
right to perform a series of distinct acts, as a right of way 
or of common, or the servitude answering thereto, such 
as cannot be enjoyed but by the intervention of man : dis- 
tinguished from a continuous servitude, which consists in 
a constant servitude, or in the reservation of some char- 
acteristic of the servient tenement, as a right of view or 
a right to a watercourse. Negative servitude, a servi- 
tude or easement which consists in the right merely to 
restrict the enjoyment of the owner of the servient tene- 
ment, as distinguished from one which entitles one to do 
an act which without the existence of the easement would 
be a positive wrong to the owner of that tenement. Thus, 
the right to receive light and air by windows over the 
land of another is a negative servitude, whereas the right 
to discharge water upon the land of another is an affirma- 
tive servitude. Personal servitude, a right constituted 
over a subject in favor of a person, without reference 
to possession or property. Predial servitude, a right 
constituted over one subject or tenement enjoyed by the 
owner of another subject or tenement. Predial servi- 
tudes are either rural or urban, according as they affect 
land or houses. The usual rural servitudes are passage 
or road, or the right which a person has to pass over 
another's land; pasture, or the right to send cattle to 
graze on another's land ; fail and divot, or the right to 
cut turf and peats on another's land ; aqueduct, or the 
right to have a stream of water conveyed through ano- 
ther's land ; thirlage, or the right to have other people's 
corn sent to one's own mill to be ground. Urban servi- 
tudes consist chiefly in the right to use a party-wall, or 
a common drain, or to have the rain from one's roof 
drop on another's land or house ; the right to prevent an- 
other from building so as to obstruct the windows of one's 
house ; the right of the owner of a flat above to have his 
flat supported by the flat beneath, etc. =Syn. 1. Serfdom, 
thraldom, vassalage, peonage. 1 and 3. Servitude, Slavery, 
Bondage. These words express involuntary subjection, 
and are in the order of strength. Servitude is the general 
word, its application to voluntary service being obsolete. 
Slavery emphasizes the completeness and the degradation 
of the state. Bondage, literally the state of being bound, 
is used chiefly in elevated style or figurative senses : as, 
bondage to appetite ; Egyptian bondage. Servitude is the 
only one of these words that applies to compulsory and 
unpaid service required as a legal penalty ; the phrase pe- 
nal servitude is very common. See serf and captivity. 
servituret (ser'vi-tur), n. [< ML. servitura, ser- 
vice, < L. servire, "serve: see serve 1 .] 1. The 
condition of servant or slave ; slavery. [Rare.] 
A very serviture of Egypt is to be in danger of these pa- 
pistic bishops. Bp. Bale, Select Works, p. 179. 
2. Servants collectively; the whole body of 
servants in a family. [Rare.] 
The chorus of shepherds prepare resistance in their mas- 
ter's defence, calling the rest of the serviture. 
Milton, Plan of a Tragedy called Sodom. 
3. Same as servitor (c). [Erroneous use.] 
Trim 's a Critick ; I remember him a Serviture at Oxon. 
Steele, Grief A-la-Mode, ii. 1. 
servitus (ser'vi-tus), n. [LL., service, servi- 
tude : see servitude.] In Bom. late, the right of 
a person not the owner of the thing to use it or 
have it serve his interest in a particular man- 
ner not wholly exclusive, but by way of excep- 
tion to the general power of exclusive use be- 
longing to the owner. 
servt. An abbreviation of servant. 
Sesamum 
servulatet (ser'vu-lat), v. i. [< L. serrulits, a 
young servant (dim. of xcrctis, a slave, servant), 
+ -te 2 .] To do obsequious service. [A eu- 
phiiistic use.] 
Bri. I embrace their loves. 
Eyre. Which we'll repay with servulating. 
Fletcher (and another), Elder Brother (ed. 1637), i. 2. 
servycet, . A Middle English form of service. 
sest, A Middle English form of cease. 
sesame (ses'a-me), H. [ME. syxrtme; < OF. 
sesame, sisamc, F. sesame = Sp. sesamo = Pg. 
sesamo = It. sesamo, sisamo = D. sesam(-knrid) 
= G. Sw. Dan. sesam, < L. setiumum, sisanmm, 
sesama, neut., sesima, sesuma, f. (= Turk. *<- 
sdtn, susam), sesame, < Gr. oqaa/iov, Laconian 
aarifiov, neut., the seed or fruit of the sesame- 
plant, the plant itself, ar/ad/a/, {., the sesame- 
plant. Cf. Ar. simnim, > Pers. simsim = Hind. 
samsam, sesame. The E. word is pronounced 
as if directly from the Gr. or/ad/i?/.] An annual 
herbaceous plant, Sesamum Iridicutn (S. orien- 
tate), widely cultivated and naturalized in trop- 
ical and subtropical countries. Itsvaluelies chiefly 
in its seeds, from which is expressed the gingili-, sesame-, 
or til-oil. The seeds are also variously used as food. The 
oil in large doses is laxative, and the leaves when macer- 
ated yield a mucilaginous remedy, useful in cholera iti- 
fantum, dysentery, etc. The plant is simple of culture, 
and thrives in sterile soil. It is somewhat grown in the 
southern United States. Also called benne. 
Sysame in fatte soil and gravel is sowe, 
Sex sester in oon acre lande is throwe. 
Palladius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 181. 
Open sesame, the charm by which the door of the rob- 
bers' dungeon in the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty 
Thieves" (in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments") flew 
open ; hence, a specific for gaining entrance into any 
place, or means of exit from it. 
It [a poet's philosophy] is rather something which is 
more energetic in a word than in a whole treatise, and 
our hearts unclose themselves instinctively at its simple 
Open sesame! Lowell, Among my Books, 2d ser., p. 237. 
Sesameae (se-sa'me-e), n. pi. [NL. (A. P. de 
Candolle, 1819), < Sesamum + -ex.] A tribe of 
gamopetalous plants, of the order Pedalineee. 
It is characterized by a two-celled ovary divided into four 
cells by false partitions, each cell containing numerous 
ovules. It includes 4 genera, chiefly African and tropical, 
of which Sesamum is the type. 
sesame-oil (ses'a-me-oil), . Oil of sesamum. 
See sesame and oil. 
sesaminet (ses'a-min), a. [< F. sesnmin, < L. 
sesaminus, < Gr. nrjnafiivof, of sesame (iAcuw ari- 
cdfuvov, sesame-oil), < ofaa/tov, m/odfiy, sesame: 
see sesame.] Derived from sesame. 
They [Brachmanes] were annointed with Sesamine oyle, 
wherewith, and with hony, they tempered their bread. 
Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 454. 
sesamoid (ses'a-moid), a. and n. [Cf. L. sesa- 
moides, & plant resembling sesame ; < Gr. 
/loeiffa, like sesame or its seeds, < ar/ad/jov, 
sesame, + tMof, form.] I. a. Having the shape 
of a grain of sesame: especially applied in 
anatomy to small independent osseous or car- 
tilaginous bodies occurring in tendinous struc- 
tures Sesamoid bones, bony nodules developed in 
tendons where they pass over an angular projection. The 
patella, in the tendon of the quadriceps extensor, is the 
largest in the human body. Sesamoid cartilage of tlie 
larynx, a small cartilaginous nodule occasionally devel- 
oped at the side of each arytenoid, near the tip, in the peri- 
chondrium. Sesamoid cartilages, cartilaginous nod- 
ules which develop in tendons under the same conditions 
as do the sesamoid bones. Sesamoid flbrocartllages. 
Same as seta-moid cartilage*. Sesamoid nasal carti- 
lages, small nodules of cartilage found on the upper mar- 
gin of the alar cartilages. Also called epactal cartilages. 
II. H. In anat., a bone developed in the ten- 
don of a muscle at or near a joint ; a scleroskel- 
etal ossification, usually of a nodular shape. 
The largest sesamoid of the human body is the patella 
or kneepan. Smaller sesamoids. in pairs, are normally 
developed in the metacarpophalangeal and metatarso- 
phalangeal joints of the inner digits (thumb and great toe), 
and in the black races of men, and many other animals, at 
these joints of all the digits. Sesamoids may be devel- 
oped at any joint, as the shoulder-joint of some birds. The 
so-called navicular bone of the horse's foot is a sesamoid. 
See cuts under Artiodactyla, hand, hoof, knee-joint, Perisso- 
dactyla, pisiform, scapholunar, and solidungulate. 
sesamoidal (ses-a-moi'dal), a. [< sesamoid + 
-at.] Same as sesamoid. 
sesamoiditis (ses'a-moi-di'tis), . [NL., < sesa- 
moid + -itis.] Disease of the sesamoid bones 
and enveloping tissues situated behind the 
metacarpophalangeal or metatarsophalangeal 
articulation (fetlock) in the horse. 
Sesamum (ses'a-mum), . [NL. (Linnasus, 
1753), < L. sesamum, < Gr. m/aauov, sesame : see 
Ki'xiiine.] A genus of gamopetalous plants, type 
of the tribe Sesameir in the order Pedalinese. 
It is characterized by flowers with a corolla-tube curved 
down and dilated above a short oblique base, terminating 
in a somewhat two-lipped limb; with a regular ovary 
which becomes a usually four-angled oblong capsule, par- 
tially loculicidal, and at the apex unarmed, compressed, 
