Servaunt

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic spelling of a person who works for a master or household, performing duties such as cooking, cleaning or attending to others
2. An older form of the word for someone hired to wait upon, assist or labour for a master, mistress or family
3. A former spelling denoting a dependent who serves a lord, employer or household in exchange for wages or board

Etymology: "Servaunt" is simply an older spelling of "servant", preserved from the Middle English period when the word was written in many variant forms. Its spelling reflects its French origin: it came into English from Old French "servant", the present participle of the verb "servir", meaning "to serve". Its route into English passed through Old French rather than directly from Latin, which is why it sounds so close to its ancestor. The word's story is one of replacement. Before French influence, English had its own word for a household worker, "þeġn", which was displaced by "servant" and its relatives. Old English "þeġn" gradually fell out of ordinary use, leaving the French-derived term to cover the sense of a person employed to attend to a household. Linguistically, "servant" is a doublet of "sergeant" and "servient", meaning that all three descend from the same Latin root but reached English by different paths. "Sergeant" entered English as a military and legal rank, while "servant" kept the general sense of someone who performs service for another.

Synonyms: servant, attendant, retainer, domestic, menial

Antonyms: master, employer, mistress, lord, boss