SERF

serf, helot, villein

(noun) (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

serf (plural serfs)

a partially free peasant of a low hereditary class, attached like a slave to the land owned by a feudal lord and required to perform labour, enjoying minimal legal or customary rights

a similar agricultural labourer in 18th and 19th century Europe

(strategy games) a worker unit

Synonyms: peasant, peon, villager

Anagrams

• ESRF, FERS, RFEs, Refs, erfs, f***ers, refs

Source: Wiktionary


Serf, n. Etym: [F., fr. L. serus servant, slave; akin to servare to protect, preserve, observe, and perhaps originally, a client, a man under one's protection. Cf. Serve, v. t.]

Definition: A servant or slave employed in husbandry, and in some countries attached to the soil and transferred with it, as formerly in Russia. In England, at least from the reign of Henry II, one only, and that the inferior species [of villeins], existed . . . But by the customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if injured by him. Hallam.

Syn.

– Serf, Slave. A slave is the absolute property of his master, and may be sold in any way. A serf, according to the strict sense of the term, is one bound to work on a certain estate, and thus attached to the soil, and sold with it into the service of whoever purchases the land.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



RESET




Word of the Day

23 November 2024

THEORETICAL

(adjective) concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations; “theoretical science”


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