menial meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

menial

adj

/ˈmiːni.əl/

Etymology From Middle English meyneal, from Anglo-Norman mesnal, from maisnee (“household”), from Vulgar Latin *mānsiōnāta, from Latin mānsiō (“house”).

Of or relating to work normally performed by a servant.

She hung round him, watching his every look as if she grudged the veriest menial offices from the servants; and she almost scolded him for not eating, when he had done justice enough to the good things set before him to have satisfied even the cook herself.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Arrived at Home”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 85:
She was not proposing to go out again, so he got her slippers and took off her boots. It delighted him to perform menial offices.1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXX, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:

Of or relating to unskilled work.

menial job
Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat; it was not the first menial work he had done in his life.1910 October 1, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Queer Feet”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC:

2 more examples

I didn't see how sweeping and scrubbing a building was any preparation for the trade of electrician; but I did know that in the books all the boys started with the most menial tasks and by making good ultimately won to the ownership of the whole concern.1913 August, Jack London, John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC:
For instance, controlling for the above-mentioned variables, migrants to Tangerang or Samarinda (rather than Medan) have a significantly greater chance of getting a craft (as opposed to menial) job.2011, Chris Manning, Sudarno Sumarto, Employment, Living Standards and Poverty in Contemporary Indonesia, →ISBN:

Servile; low; mean.

a menial wretch

Derived terms: menialism, meniality, menialize, menially, nonmenial, unmenial

menial

noun

Etymology From Middle English meyneal, from Anglo-Norman mesnal, from maisnee (“household”), from Vulgar Latin *mānsiōnāta, from Latin mānsiō (“house”).

A servant, especially a domestic servant.

“Nay, Dame Mary,” answered the Knight, “it is enough you desire such an attendant.—Yet I have never loved to nurse such useless menials—a lady's page—it may well suit the proud English dames to have a slender youth to bear their trains from bower to hall, fan them when they slumber, and touch the lute for them when they please to listen; […]”1820, [Walter Scott], chapter 3, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC:
But the young man was conscious, at the same moment, that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be “talked about” by low-minded menials.1879, Henry James, Daisy Miller, London: Harper & Brothers:

3 more examples

Was this stupid system, so cruel, so crushing, and producing at the top such absurd results as flashy, insolent autos and silly palaces and overfed, overdressed women, and dogs in jeweled collars, and babies of wealth brought up by low menials—was this system really the best?a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise:
He told me that princes, jeds, and even jeddaks of the outer world, were among the menials who served the yellow race; […]1913 December – 1914 March, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Warlord of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published September 1919, →OCLC:
The world was awake to the 2nd of May, but Mayfair is not the world, and even the menials of Mayfair lie long abed.1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./4/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:

A person who has a subservient nature.

Related terms: mansion, maison, maisonette, menage

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.