server

noun

serv·​er ˈsər-vər 

1

: one that serves food or drink

2

: the player who serves (as in tennis)

3

: something used in serving food or drink

4

: one that serves legal processes upon another

5

: the celebrant's assistant at mass

6

: a computer in a network that is used to provide services (such as access to files or shared peripherals or the routing of email) to other computers in the network

Synonyms

• waiter
• waitress

Examples of server in a Sentence

She asked our server for another glass of wine.

we had barely finished ordering when the server brought our salads

Recent Examples on the Web

Stage 3: Dropbox Passwords Full Discontinuation from Oct. 28, 2025 This is the point at which everything will be deleted from Dropbox’s servers. —David Phelan, Forbes.com, 31 July 2025

Next came another potentially risky command: curl along with the address of the attacker’s server. —Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 30 July 2025

Data centers operate 24/7, housing servers that provide computing power and require massive amounts of water, fans and cooling units to keep the equipment from overheating. —Karoline Leonard, Austin American Statesman, 30 July 2025

Executives also offered up three reasons why Azure has been significantly better than expected for two quarters in a row: 1) ongoing migrations from on-premise servers to the cloud; 2) the scaling of cloud-native applications; and 3) new AI workloads. —Jeff Marks, CNBC, 30 July 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English server, servere, from serven "to serve entry 1" + -er, -ere -er entry 2

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing server

• ad server
• altar server
• blade server

Rhymes for server

• fervor
• fervour
• observer
• preserver

Kids Definition

server

noun

serv·​er ˈsər-vər 

1

: a person who serves food or drink

2

: the player who puts a ball in play

3

: something (as a tray) used in serving food or drink

4

: a computer in a network that is used to provide services (as access to files or the delivery of email) to other computers