servingman
English
Etymology
From serving + -man.
Noun
servingman (plural servingmen) (historical)
- A male servant.
- 1598, Markham, Gervase, A Health to the Gentlemanly profeſsion of Seruingmen: or, The Seruingmans Comfort:
- What, ſhall Ioan haue a Seruingman: is her father ſo madd as he wyll marrie her to a Seruingman: What to a Seruingman ſayes one: To a Seruingman ſayes another: he neyther hath any thyng, nor can earne any thyng.
- 1752, The British Stage, volume 1, page 24:
- Well! the greateſt plague of a ſervingman, is to be hir’d to ſome great Lord! They care not what drudgery they put upon us, while they lie lolling at their eaſe a-bed, and ſtretch their lazy limbs, in expectation of the Whore which we are fetching for them.
- 1900, Douglas, Amanda Minnie, A Little Girl in Old Washington:
- Madame Badeau lived in a rather shabby-looking rough stone house, quite small in the front, but plenty large enough for her and a serving-man and maid, and running back to a pretty garden, where she cultivated all manner of beautiful flowers, and such roses that lovers of them were always begging a slip or piece of root.
- 2000, McConnell, Louise, “Abram”, in Dictionary of Shakespeare, Fitzroy Dearborn, →ISBN, page 1:
- A minor character in Romeo and Juliet, Abram is a servingman in the Montague household who fights with the Capulet servants in the opening scene of the play.
- 2015 February 15, Linley, Keith, 'King Lear' in Context: The Cultural Background, →ISBN, page 78:
- We see little of Lear’s court in formal action, but there is moral cowardice in its general readiness to accede to unjust actions and say nothing. There is Goneril using Oswald to destabilize the king, Edgar’s depiction of a servingman’s life, the disguised Kent’s undiplomatic irritation of Cornwall and Regan and their spiteful retaliation.