MENIAL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Menial

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/mˈiniəl/ Listen

adjective

Menial adj.

Belonging to a retinue or train of servants; performing servile office; serving. "Two menial dogs before their master pressed."

Pertaining to servants, esp. domestic servants; servile; low; mean; as, menial tasks. " Menial offices."

noun

Menial n.

A domestic servant or retainer, esp. one of humble rank; one employed in low or servile offices.

A person of a servile character or disposition.

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Etymology of 'Menial'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books

... but some plausible pretext," he thought, "some ostensible reason for my return, some excuse to allege which might show I came not as a degraded supplicant, or a discarded menial, I might go thither—but as I am, I cannot—my heart would leap from its place ...

— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... Eventually he had acquired a little skill at contemplating what, essentially, remained a mystery to his easily-tired mind. It was not completely satisfactory but it would be enough to get him a better-than-average menial job when he had finally ...

— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner

... wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, ...

— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged. He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely. ...

— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... even in the market place. After a few months his mother died and his father sacrificed his last remaining possessions for drink. He insulted and even attacked his son, bidding him leave his house, and the poor boy was compelled to render the most menial service to all. For ten long years this condition lasted, yet ...

— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

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