How to Use subservience in a Sentence

subservience

noun
  • His utter subservience to the party’s donor class breaks from the pattern.
    Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 31 Aug. 2017
  • The result is that women, in the context of the event, seem contained by it, a form of subservience framed as the agency of artistry.
    Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2021
  • Kate’s final speech of seeming subservience feels so out of date.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 June 2022
  • One way to break the pattern of subservience, Swift seems to be saying, is to become the monster itself.
    Annabel Gutterman, Time, 21 Oct. 2022
  • In the aftermath, Hoskins set aside his own grief in subservience to that of his younger sister, Meloria.
    Dave Sheinin, chicagotribune.com, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Dolan, an owner from the very old school of player subservience, has once again flunked modern N.B.A. civics.
    Harvey Araton, New York Times, 1 July 2019
  • For too long, the image of enslaved people we were sold was one of compliance and subservience.
    Kathleen Newman-Bremang, refinery29.com, 30 July 2021
  • His subservience to Putin and Erdogan has inflamed the growing proxy war.
    Washington Post, 10 Jan. 2020
  • Luther demanded absolute subservience to the German prince by his flock, no matter how bad the prince might be.
    Win McCormack, The New Republic, 30 Dec. 2020
  • The faces of his figures refuse to behave or resolve into visual subservience.
    Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 21 Aug. 2019
  • Her subservience pays off , as she's allowed to reunite with Noah, who's crying upstairs.
    Matt Cabral, EW.com, 26 Oct. 2022
  • The Tigers also boasted the world’s fiercest army of women, even as Tamil society imposed a culture of subservience.
    Longreads, 22 May 2018
  • Negro fell out of fashion with the Black Power movement of the 1960s, coming to symbolize subservience.
    David Bauder, The Christian Science Monitor, 16 June 2020
  • Drollinger’s fondness for abject subservience even extends to climate change.
    Nina Burleigh, Newsweek, 5 Oct. 2017
  • This event was far more centered on celebrating those attending rather than showing any subservience to the king.
    Alexander Smith, NBC News, 6 May 2023
  • But standing is a sign of respect, and Miss Manners finds no subservience in showing it for old age, high position or your favorite performer.
    Judith Martin, oregonlive, 18 Apr. 2023
  • The modesty costumes were meant to indicate subservience, but they have been redeployed by activists to mean the opposite.
    Annie Sutherland, Quartzy, 13 June 2019
  • But plots devised to teach these women subservience have been rendered obsolete by a late-evolving common sense.
    Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 2 Apr. 2018
  • But their rule before she was born has become its own history lessons, now amplified as her classmates dread a return to subservience.
    Author: Alex Horton, Ezzatullah Mehrdad, Anchorage Daily News, 11 Aug. 2021
  • And Trump, who burned through three campaign managers in less than a year and routinely mocks his aides to their faces, is a hard boss to please, demanding not merely loyalty but, at times, subservience.
    Maggie Haberman, Orange County Register, 18 Jan. 2017
  • His craven subservience to Putin also has been a central pillar of his administration.
    Steve Chapman, chicagotribune.com, 4 Dec. 2019
  • In Gilead—the repressive American regime in which the main protagonist Offred is forced to live—it is intended to function as a sign of female subservience.
    Annie Sutherland, Quartzy, 13 June 2019
  • The price of borrowing from China is tough terms of repayment and political subservience.
    Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 25 Mar. 2021
  • The book, through case studies, examined the entrenched societal systems that preserved the subservience, dependence and hopelessness of the slave era.
    Neil Genzlinger, New York Times, 10 July 2018
  • British culture, like other European and Asian cultures, was long based on the subservience of the individual character to the role, or job, required.
    Mohamed El Aassar, Fortune, 15 Dec. 2022
  • The two quickly turned to groveling and begging for Trump’s support, each trying to outdo the other in showing their subservience rather than their independence.
    cleveland, 29 Dec. 2021
  • Usually, however, a male will yield to the stronger challenger, often showing subservience by grooming or making a coughing sound.
    National Geographic, 5 Dec. 2016
  • Kyrie's) passing inclinations on the basketball court have not been regular enough to qualify as a phase, a craze, or anything but abject subservience to his one-on-one plays.
    Chris Fedor, cleveland.com, 26 July 2017
  • Its originators wanted to escape their subservience to real-world referents and let shape and color act as a language all their own, like musical notes.
    Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 5 May 2023
  • Once heralded as a fearless lawman, game-changing New York City mayor and Sept. 11 hero, he is now defined by a subservience to the 45th president that sometimes veered into buffoonery.
    Dan Barry, New York Times, 15 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'subservience.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: