Etymology

From servus +‎ -tūsCategory:Latin terms suffixed with -tus (abstract noun)#SERVITUS.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈsɛr.wɪ.tuːs]Category:Latin 3-syllable words#SERVITUSCategory:Latin terms with IPA pronunciation#SERVITUS
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsɛr.vi.tus]Category:Latin 3-syllable words#SERVITUSCategory:Latin terms with IPA pronunciation#SERVITUS

Noun

servitūs f (genitive servitūtis)Category:Latin lemmas#SERVITUSCategory:Latin nouns#SERVITUSCategory:Latin third declension nouns#SERVITUSCategory:Latin feminine nouns in the third declension#SERVITUSCategory:Latin entries with incorrect language header#SERVITUSCategory:Latin feminine nouns#SERVITUSCategory:Pages with entries#SERVITUSCategory:Pages with 1 entry#SERVITUS; third declension

1. slavery, servitude

   Synonyms: servitūdō, servitium

   Antonym: lībertās

   • 166 BCE, Publius Terentius Afer, Andria 35–37:

     Ego postquam tē ēmī, ā parvulō ut semper tibi
     apud mē jūsta et clēmēns fuerit servitūs
     scīs. [...].

     After I bought you, ever since you were a small boy your slavery with me was always fair and lenient, as you know.

     Category:Latin terms with quotations#SERVITUS
   • c. 347 CE – 420 CE, Hieronymus, Vulgate Exodus.20.2:

     Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus, qui eduxi te de terra Aegypti, de domo servitutis.

     I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

     Category:Latin terms with quotations#SERVITUS
2. a body of slaves
3. (lawCategory:la:Law#SERVITUS) a servitude (encumbrance on land)
4. (Medieval LatinCategory:Medieval Latin#SERVITUS) vassaldom
5. (Medieval LatinCategory:Medieval Latin#SERVITUS) worship, religious ministry
6. (Medieval LatinCategory:Medieval Latin#SERVITUS) a tax paid on land

References

• “servitus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “servitus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "servitus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “servitus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to languish in slavery: servitute premi (Phil. 4. 1. 3)
    
  • to enslave a free people: liberum populum servitute afficere
    
  • to reduce to slavery: aliquem in servitutem redigere
    
  • to lay the yoke of slavery on some one: alicui servitutem iniungere, imponere
    
  • to keep the citizens in servile subjection: civitatem servitute oppressam tenere (Dom. 51. 131)
    
  • to carry off into slavery: aliquem in servitutem abducere, abstrahere
    
  • to submit to the yoke of slavery: iugum servitutis accipere
    
  • to shake off the yoke of slavery: iugum servitutis excutere
    
  • to shake off the yoke of slavery: servitutem exuere (Liv. 34. 7)
    
  • to deliver some one from slavery: ab aliquo servitutem or servitutis iugum depellere
    

  Category:Latin words in Meissner and Auden's phrasebook
• “servitus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “servitus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, & R. K. Ashdowne, editors (1975–2013), “servitus”, in Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources‎, London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, →ISBN, →OCLC
• Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976), “servitus”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 967