Slavish

Definition: Slavish

Slavish

Adjective

1. Blindly imitative; "a slavish copy of the original".

2. Abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant; "slavish devotion to her job ruled her life"; "a slavish yes-man to the party bosses"- S.H.Adams; "she has become submissive and subservient".

Date "slavish" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Synonyms: Slavish

Synonyms: submissive (adj), subservient (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Servility	Adjective: servile, obsequious; supple,supple as a glove; soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed; beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical; abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones; base, mean, sneaking; crouching; Verb:
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Slavish

English words defined with "slavish": slavishly, submissive, subservient ♦ Thrall-like. (references)

Etymologies containing "slavish": Barbarous. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Slavish" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses.

Manx (Slav, Slavonian, Slavonic).

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. (The Phantom Tollbooth; writing credit: Chuck Jones; Norton Juster)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
Horace	O imitators, you slavish herd!
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Author	Date	Quotation
John Locke	1690	And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any body, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject: for no man or society of men, having a power to deliver up their preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of another; when ever any one shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to preserve, what they have not a power to part with; and to rid themselves of those, who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation, for which they entered into society. (Second Treatise of Government)
Communist Manifesto	1848	But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. (reference)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Slavish" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 95.74% of the time. "Slavish" is used about 47 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	95.74%	45	50,900
Lexical Verb (infinitive)	2.13%	1	339,140
Lexical Verb (base form)	2.13%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	47	N/A

Expressions using "slavish": slavish imitation ♦ slavish life. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Language		Translations for "slavish"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		prej skllavi, i varur (ancillary, baggy, conditional, dangling, dependant, dependent, depending, flagging, hanging, in suspense, pendant, pendent, pending, pendulous, pensile, subject, suspended), i nënshtruar (deferred, passive, reduced, servile, subject, submissive, subordinate, under, yielding). (various references)

Arabic		‏وضيع (contemptible, cowardly, grubby, humble, inferior, low, low-grade, lowly, mean, menial, scabby, scaly, scruffy, scurvy, slight, snide, vile), ‏حقير (abject, base, beggarly, blackguardly, cheap, despicable, dingy, dirty, frowzy, grubby, ignoble, inferior, insignificant, lousy, low, low down, lowly, mean, menial, niggling, paltry, pettifogger, petty, pip squeak, pitiable, pitiful, poor, popinjay, rotten, scabby, scaly, scoundrelly, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, servile, shabby, shoddy, slim, slushy, small minded, snide, sod, squalid, swine, tacky, trifling, ungracious, unworthy, varmint, vile, villainous, worthless, wretched), ‏صاغر. (various references)

Bulgarian		угоднически (obsequious, servile, soapy), сервилен (compliant, sequacious, servile, subservient), робски (menial, servile, slavishly). (various references)

Czech		otrocký (servile). (various references)

Farsi		وابسته بتقلیدکورکورانه , غلام صحت , درخوربندگان , بنده وار. (various references)

Finnish		orjallinen. (various references)

French		servile (slight). (various references)

German		sklavisch (servile). (various references)

Greek		δουλικόσ (abject, servile, subservient), δουλοπρεπήσ (compliant, cringer, obsequious, servile, subservient). (various references)

Hebrew		משועב�" (enslaved, oppressed, thrall), עב�"ותי (obsequious, servile). (various references)

Hungarian		rabszolga (bondslave, maroon, serf, slave, thrall), szolgai (courtly, menial, sequacious, servile, sneaky, subservient), strapás (against the collar, exacting, sweaty), rabszolgai. (various references)

Italian		servile (cringing, menial, modal, obsequious, servile), abbietto (abject, base, scurvy, servile, vile). (various references)

Manx		kercheenagh (abject, cringing, cullionly, dependent, down-and-out, impoverished, impoverishing, miserable, rotten, servile, shabby, truckle, vile, vile morally). (various references)

Pig Latin		avishslay

Portuguese		servil (fulvous, menial, obsequious, sequacious, servile, slimy, sneaking, subservient, toad-eating), vil (base, caitiff, carrion, despicable, dirty, ignoble, limb, lousy, lower, low-minded, mean, nasty, nefarious, paludal, piccaninny, rascally, reptile, rotten, scurrilous, scurvy, servile, sneaking, sordid, ugly, vile, villainous), próprio de escravo, baixo (base, bass, bass voice, basso, caitiff, common, dumpy, dwarfish, hereinafter, hollow, ignoble, lily livered, low, low down, lowering, mean, mediocrity, menial, netherlander, obsequious, pygmean, raffish, rascally, reptile, scummy, scurrilous, scurvy, servile, shallow, short, small, sordid, superficial, vulgar, vulgarian), abjeto (abject, contemptible, reptile, servile, vile). (various references)

Romanian		slugarnic (cringing, grovelling, hat in hand, obsequious, servile, slimy, submissive, supple, toad-eating), servil (cringer, menial, obsequious, obsequiously, officious, servile, servilely, slavishly, subservient, supple), ordinar (boorish, caddish, coarse, common, commonplace, customary, frequent, gross, homespun, improper, ordinary, regular, rough, trivial, unrefined, usual, vulgar), josnic (abject, base, base-minded, despicable, dirty, grovelling, grubby, infamous, little, low, low-minded, mean, meanly, nasty, paltry, scurrilous, scurvy, shabby, sordid, sordidly, vile), de sclav (servile), abject (abject, abjectly, cringing, low, mean, miserable, nefarious). (various references)

Russian		рабски покорный, несамостоятельный (adjective). (various references)

Scottish		tr� illeil. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		ropsko, ropski (menial). (various references)

Spanish		servil (fawning, fulsome, menial, obsequious, sequacious, servile, subservient, sycophantic). (various references)

Swedish		slavisk (servile, slav, Slavic). (various references)

Turkish		tıpatıp aynı (as like as two peas, for all the world like, replica, spit), körü körüne (blindfold, blindly, gropingly, imprudently), köpek gibi (canine, doggish, doglike, like a dog), köle gibi (servile, vassal), adi (abject, base, camp, campy, cheap jack, chintzy, coarse, coarse grained, common, common as dirt, commonplace, contemptible, dastardly, despicable, everyday, groveling, grovelling, gutter, hackneyed, jerkwater, little, low, low class, mean, measly, no class, one horse, ordinary, ornery, picayune, picayunish, poky, rubbishy, shoddy, sleazy, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, vile, vulgar, wormy, yellow dog), aşağılık (abject, base, baseness, contemptible, dirty, groveling, grovelling, ignoble, ignominious, inferiority, low down, lowness, mean, no class, no good, pettiness, petty, rascally, reptilian, scabby, scurvy, snotty, sordid, tinpot, unutterable, unworthy, vile, wicked, wormy). (various references)

Ukrainian		раболіпний (ancillary, creepy, humble, obsequious, servile, sneaky, subservient), огидливий, наслідувальний (emulative, imitative, mimetic, mimic). (various references)

Vietnamese		khúm núm (obsequious), có tính chất nô lệ, đê tiện mù quáng. (various references)

Welsh		gwasaidd (servile). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "slavish": slavishly, slavishness, slavishnesses. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Slavish" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Salavessa, salish, saltish, salvis, Sclavos, Siavush, slavi, Slemish, slovish. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "slavish" (pronounced slā"vish)
3	-v i sh	dovish, lavish, peevish.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-h-i-l-s-s-v"
	-1 letter: lavish, shivas, silvas.
	-2 letters: hails, sails, shiva, shivs, sials, silva, sisal, slash, vails, vials, visas.
	-3 letters: ails, hail, hila, hiss, lash, lass, lavs, sail, sals, sash, shiv, sial, vail, vial, visa.
	-4 letters: ail, ais, als, ash, ass, has, his, las, lav, lis, sal, sha, sis, vas, via, vis.
	-5 letters: ah, ai, al, as, ha, hi.
	Words containing the letters "a-h-i-l-s-s-v"
	+1 letter: lavishes.
	+2 letters: lavishers, lavishest, slavishly.
	+3 letters: lavishness, shavelings, shavetails, shinleaves.
	+4 letters: slavishness.
	+5 letters: heavenliness, lavishnesses, shrievalties.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.