as in servility
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Recent Examples of subservience
Ray is the leader of a biker gang and demands utter subservience.
—
Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 2 Oct. 2025
How does party capture — the subservience of entire systems — factor into this?
—Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone, 22 Sep. 2025
People who climb upward by sacrificing their integrity to slavish subservience almost always fall on their faces eventually.
—Robert B. Reich, Hartford Courant, 21 Aug. 2025
But the tension between a military’s subservience to civilian authority and its obligation to uphold democracy is not unique to Israel: military personnel around the world face a similar predicament whenever political leaders threaten to erode democratic values and institutions.
—Risa Brooks, Foreign Affairs, 9 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for subservience
Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 2 Oct. 2025
How does party capture — the subservience of entire systems — factor into this?
—Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone, 22 Sep. 2025
People who climb upward by sacrificing their integrity to slavish subservience almost always fall on their faces eventually.
—Robert B. Reich, Hartford Courant, 21 Aug. 2025
But the tension between a military’s subservience to civilian authority and its obligation to uphold democracy is not unique to Israel: military personnel around the world face a similar predicament whenever political leaders threaten to erode democratic values and institutions.
—Risa Brooks, Foreign Affairs, 9 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for subservience
Recent Examples of Synonyms for subservience
Noun
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All of this amounts to a rounding error for the tech giants—averaged out, YouTube made more than $107 million from ad revenue every single day last quarter—but these are still acts of profound obsequiousness and corporate cowardice.—
Charlie Warzel,
The Atlantic,
1 Oct. 2025
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Trump doesn’t have much to show for his obsequiousness.—
Steven Greenhut,
Oc Register,
12 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Passage of this resolution was tantamount to acquiescence by Congress, granting the president the authority to respond militarily by sending thousands of troops to fight in Vietnam.—
Richard Cherwitz,
Sun Sentinel,
6 Jan. 2026
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Despite that goal, the Utah Legislature’s Republican supermajority, with Cox’s acquiescence, has taken a hard turn against solar power — which has been coming online faster than any other source in Utah and accounts for two-thirds of the new projects waiting to connect to the state’s power grid.—
Anjeanette Damon,
ProPublica,
12 Dec. 2025
Noun
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But for Coles, his indoctrination to law enforcement has been a different level of submissiveness.—
Dan Pompei,
New York Times,
2 Dec. 2025
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In Killers of the Flower Moon, his Ernest Burkhart starts off as a mopey, weak-minded World War One veteran, eager to do anything for his godfather uncle (Robert De Niro), but there’s still a certain likability to his dim-bulb submissiveness.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
2 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Yet electing to be private doesn’t amount to complaisance or complicity.—
Lesley M.M. Blume,
Town & Country,
6 Dec. 2022
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Sammy’s awareness of his mother’s infidelity, his father’s complaisance, and how both were relieved by his creative Boy Scout merit-badge projects and fantasies requires a separate article.—
Armond White,
National Review,
16 Nov. 2022
Noun
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One truth of which Vigil seems deliberately oblivious is that many of those who inspire confidence and deference, as Boone did, have something going for them.—
Julius Taranto,
The Atlantic,
27 Jan. 2026
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The federal courts usually grant deference to the president when the government issues statements in the context of litigation.—
Andrea Katz,
The Conversation,
26 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Subservience.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/subservience. Accessed 30 Jan. 2026.
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