Translation
slave, servant
Examples
paret.
The slave obeys his master.
laborabant.
The slaves were working in the fields.
.
He sent the slave into the city.
libertatem .
He gave the slaves their freedom.
.
He had many slaves on the estate.
Servus, servi, m., is second declension, and the word is blunt: a servus is legally property, not an employee. Translating it as "servant" softens Roman texts into something they are not. The feminine is serva or, more commonly, ancilla.
Christian Latin then does something odd with it. Servus Dei, "slave of God", is a title of honour, and the Pope styles himself servus servorum Dei, which is a deliberate inversion of a word everyone understood as degrading. Do not read servus off servo, "I save, keep, guard" - that is a different verb. The one that belongs here is servio, "be a slave to", and it takes the dative: servire domino.
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servus: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "servus" (slave, servant): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 10.