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; to promote. It is a great credit to know the ways of captivating Nature, and making her subserve our purposes, than to have learned all the intrigues of policy. Glanvill.

nferior position or degree, in an imperfect or partial state, as in subscribe, substruct, subserve, subject, subordinate, subacid, subastringent, subgranular, suborn. Sub- in Latin compounds often becomes sum- before m, sur before r, and regularly becomes suc-, suf- , sug-, and sup- before c, f, g, and p respectively.…

Fitted or disposed to subserve; useful in an inferior capacity; serving to promote some end; subordinate; hence, servile, truckling. Scarce ever reading anything which he did not make subservient in one kind or other. Bp. Fell. These ranks of creatures are subservient one to another. Ray. Their temporal ambition was wh…

Character; condition of being; purpose subserved or office filled. [In this sense archaic] "I have a king here to my flatterer." Shak. Made his masters and others . . . to consider him to a little wonder. Walton.