Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (1)
1.
state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor imposed as punishment;
- Example: "penal servitude"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Servitude \Serv"i*tude\, n. [L. servitudo: cf. F. servitude.]
1. The state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a
master; the condition of being bound to service; the
condition of a slave; slavery; bondage; hence, a state of
slavish dependence.
[1913 Webster]
You would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude. --Shak.
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A splendid servitude; . . . for he that rises up
early, and goes to bed late, only to receive
addresses, is really as much abridged in his freedom
as he that waits to present one. --South.
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2. Servants, collectively. [Obs.]
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After him a cumbrous train
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude.
--Milton.
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3. (Law) A right whereby one thing is subject to another
thing or person for use or convenience, contrary to the
common right.
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Note: The object of a servitude is either to suffer something
to be done by another, or to omit to do something, with
respect to a thing. The easements of the English
correspond in some respects with the servitudes of the
Roman law. Both terms are used by common law writers,
and often indiscriminately. The former, however, rather
indicates the right enjoyed, and the latter the burden
imposed. --Ayliffe. Erskine. E. Washburn.
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Penal servitude. See under Penal.
Personal servitude (Law), that which arises when the use of
a thing is granted as a real right to a particular
individual other than the proprietor.
Predial servitude (Law), that which one estate owes to
another estate. When it related to lands, vineyards,
gardens, or the like, it is called rural; when it related
to houses and buildings, it is called urban.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
servitude
n 1: state of subjection to an owner or master or forced labor
imposed as punishment; "penal servitude"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
39 Moby Thesaurus words for "servitude":
absolutism, attendance, bond service, bondage, captivity, control,
debt slavery, deprivation of freedom, disenfranchisement,
disfranchisement, domination, employ, employment, enslavement,
enthrallment, feudalism, feudality, helotism, helotry,
indentureship, ministration, ministry, peonage, restraint, serfdom,
serfhood, servility, servitium, servitorship, slavery, subjection,
subjugation, tendance, thrall, thralldom, tyranny, vassalage,
villenage, yoke
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
SERVITUDE, civil law. A term which indicates the subjection of one person to
another person, or of a person to a thing, or of a thing to a person, or of
a thing to a thing.
2. Hence servitudes are divided into real, personal, and mixed. Lois
des Bat. P. 1, c. 1.
3. A real or predial servitude is a charge laid on an estate for the
use and utility of another estate belonging to another proprietor. Louis.
Code, art. 643. When used without any adjunct, the word servitude means a
real or predial servitude. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1.
4. The subjection of one person to another is a purely personal
servitude; if it exists in the right of property which a person exercises
over another, it is slavery. When the subjection of one person to another is
not slavery, it consists simply in the right of requiring of another what he
is bound to do, or not to do; this right arises from all kinds of contracts
or quasi con tracts. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 1.
5. The subjection of persons to things or of things to persons, are
mixed servitudes. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 2.
6. Real servitudes are divided into rural and urban. Rural servitudes
are those which are due by an estate to another estate, such as the right of
passage over the serving estate, or that which owes the servitude, or to
draw water from it, or to water cattle there, or to take coal, lime and wood
from it, and the like. Urban servitudes are those which are established over
a building fur the convenience of another, such as the right of resting the
joists in the wall of the serving building, of opening windows which
overlook the serving estate, and the like. Dict. de Jurisp. tit. Servitudes.
See, generally, Lois des Bat. Part 1 Louis. Code, tit. 4; Code Civil, B. 2,
tit. 4; This Dict. tit. Ancient Lights; Easements; Ways; Lalaure, Des
Servitudes, passim.