'Your obedient servant' definitions:
Definition of 'Your obedient servant'
From: GCIDE
- Servant \Serv"ant\, n. [OE. servant, servaunt, F. servant, a & p. pr. of servir to serve, L. servire. See Serve, and cf. Sergeant.]
- 1. One who serves, or does services, voluntarily or on compulsion; a person who is employed by another for menial offices, or for other labor, and is subject to his command; a person who labors or exerts himself for the benefit of another, his master or employer; a subordinate helper. "A yearly hired servant." --Lev. xxv. 53. [1913 Webster]
- Men in office have begun to think themselves mere agents and servants of the appointing power, and not agents of the government or the country. --D. Webster. [1913 Webster]
- Note: In a legal sense, stewards, factors, bailiffs, and other agents, are servants for the time they are employed in such character, as they act in subordination to others. So any person may be legally the servant of another, in whose business, and under whose order, direction, and control, he is acting for the time being. --Chitty. [1913 Webster]
- 2. One in a state of subjection or bondage. [1913 Webster]
- Thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt. --Deut. v. 15. [1913 Webster]
- 3. A professed lover or suitor; a gallant. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
- In my time a servant was I one. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]
- Servant of servants, one debased to the lowest condition of servitude.
- Your humble servant, or Your obedient servant, phrases of civility formerly often used in closing a letter, now archaic; -- at one time such phrases were exaggerated to include Your most humble, most obedient servant. [1913 Webster +PJC]
- Our betters tell us they are our humble servants, but understand us to be their slaves. --Swift. [1913 Webster]