Search the Dictionary

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

Pertaining to the catamenia, or menstrual discharges.

low. Hence: Low-minded; unworthy; without dignity of sentiment; ignoble; mean; illiberal; menial; as, a base fellow; base motives; base occupations. "A cruel act of a base and a cowardish mind." Robynson (More's Utopia). "Base ingratitude." Milton.

The scullions and lower menials of a court, or of a nobleman's household, who, in a removal from one residence to another, had charge of the kitchen utensils, and being smutted by them, were jocularly called the "black guard"; also, the servants and hangers-on of an army. [Obs.] A lousy slave, that . . . rode with the…

A villein who rendered menial service for his cottage; a cottier. The cottar, the bordar, and the laborer were bound to aid in the work of the home farm. J. R. Green.

To perform menial work; to labor in mean or unpleasant offices with toil and fatigue. He gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged. Macaulay.

To act as a fag, or perform menial services or drudgery, for another, as in some English schools. To fag out, to become untwisted or frayed, as the end of a rope, or the edge of canvas.

To drudge; to do menial work. Richardson.

A base, menial wretch. -- a.

Any male servant; a menial. [Obs.] Chaucer. He's but Fortune's knave, A minister of her will. Shak.

A native sailor, employed in European vessels; also, a menial employed about arsenals, camps, camps, etc.; a camp follower. [East Indies]

The catamenial or menstrual discharge, a periodic flow of blood or bloody fluid from the uterus or female generative organs.

To discharge the menses; to have the catamenial flow.

Of or pertaining tj the monthly flow; catamenial.

Servants of the priests and Levites in the menial services about the tabernacle and temple.

Of or pertaining to Nice, a town of Asia Minor, or to the ecumenial council held there A. D. 325. Nicene Creed (, a summary of Christian faith, composed and adopted by the Council of Nice, against Arianism, A. D. 325, altered and confirmed by the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, and by subsequent councils.…

A boy who carries pots of ale, beer, etc.; a menial in a public house.

A servant who cleans pots and kettles, and does other menial services in the kitchen. The meanest scullion that followed his camp. South.

, 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. Men in offi…

mployed in labor or other business for another; to be in subjection or bondage; to render menial service. The Lord shall give thee rest . . . from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. Isa. xiv. 3.