More definitions of "serve":
- (verb): Do duty or hold offices; serve in a specific function.
Example: "He served as head of the department for three years"; "She served in Congress for two terms"
- (verb): Work for or be a servant to.
Example: "May I serve you?"
Synonyms: attend to, wait on, attend, assist
- (verb): Serve a purpose, role, or function.
Example: "This table would serve very well"
Synonyms: function
- (verb): Put the ball into play.
Example: "It was Agassi's turn to serve"
- (noun): (sports) a stroke that puts the ball in play.
Synonyms: service
- (verb): Contribute or conduce to.
Example: "The scandal served to increase his popularity"
- (verb): Promote, benefit, or be useful or beneficial to.
Synonyms: serve well
- (verb): Devote (part of) one's life or efforts to, as of countries, institutions, or ideas.
Example: "She served the art of music"; "He served the church"; "serve the country"
- (verb): Be used by; as of a utility.
Synonyms: service
- (verb): Provide (usually but not necessarily food).
Example: "We serve meals for the homeless"
Synonyms: serve up, dish out, dish up, dish
- (verb): Do military service.
Example: "She served in Vietnam"; "My sons never served, because they are short-sighted"
- (verb): Mate with.
Example: "Male animals serve the females for breeding purposes"
Synonyms: service
- (verb): Help to some food; help with food or drink.
Synonyms: help
Famous quotes containing the word serve:
“Like children, the elders are a burden. But unlike children, they offer no hope or promise. They are a weight and an encumbrance and a mirror of our own mortality. It takes a person of great heart to see past this fact and to see the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)
“Few serve truth in truth because only few have the pure will to be just, and of those again very few have the strength to be just.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Charity is a cop-out so traditionally female in its apparent self-effacement that there seems resonant comfort in it. We’re no longer supposed to serve the imaginations of men who have dominated us. We are to give up ourselves instead to those whose suffering is greater than our own. Looking down is just as distorting as looking up and as dangerous in perpetuating hierarchies.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)