servitor

See also: servitör and servitør

English edit

From Middle English servitour, borrowed from Latin servītor, from servīre, present active infinitive of serviō (“I serve”).

servitor (plural servitors)

One who performs the duties of a servant.
- 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 89:
  The button-covered servitor had no doubt but that his sovereign's answer would be in reply, "Then he may go;" but he was mistaken, for Lady Anne had discovered that she looked well in her beautiful lace nightcaps, as most people do when their flesh has fallen away, and they are verging to the lantern jaw;...
- 1885, Percival Lowell, “On Hats”, in Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm: A Sketch of Korea, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Company, →OCLC, page 346:
  Several days passed by, and to all appearance we had quite forgotten our poor old servitor, – so heartless in remembrance is weak humanity to its nearest and dearest, – when, in course of time, it got to be New Year's eve, and we were sitting in our study, awaiting the cook's preparations for dinner, when suddenly we heard a noise as of much tramping.
- 1927, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 200, page 150:
  He heard Rogers' voice raised in the reception room; he stepped to the doorway and saw his servitor arguing with an elderly and trampish man who had got in somehow.
One who serves in an army; a soldier.
(historical) An undergraduate who performed menial duties in exchange for financial support from his college, particularly at Oxford University.

1884, W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida
"You'll find no sizars here, or servitors/or other cruel distinctions meant to draw/a line 'twixt rich and poor"
1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 22
The servitors waxed silent, each lost in introspection, until the rattle of the Valmouth cab announced the expected guest.

From servus (“slave”) +‎ -tor.

servītor m (genitive servītōris); third declension

“servitor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
servitor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

servitor m (plural servitori, feminine equivalent servitoare)