Lat. servus

Greek characters omitted or Cyrillic characters omitted.) The derivation of Lat. servus "slave" from servare "to watch, observe, keep, retain, protect, preserve, save" or directly from the latter's Indo-European ancestor *ser- "to guard, protect" + suff. *- yohas a long history, servus being interpreted etymologically in antiquity as "(prisoner) saved (from slaughter)"1 and in modern times as "guard", "shepherd", or the like.2 The poor semantic support of this etymology was excellently pointed out by Benveniste: "It is impossible to consider servus as a derivative of the verb servare and to imagine that it was the function of the servus "to guard". The passive meaning of this -er derivative is a rarity among the approx. 978 -er formations recorded in English.6 One may cite weaner "a calf or lamb weaned during the current year"7, with an earlier variant weanyer from the year 1524s and with synonyms from the same root but a different suffixation such as wean-ling (a. 1532), wean-el (a. 1488) and a compound wean-calf "a calf newly weaned" (a. 1618).9 In the same line of formation appears to be keeper "one who continues or remains at a place" (a. 1611), also "a fruit, or other product, that keeps (well or ill)" (a.1843), derived from intransitive senses of the verb keep,10 and warder "one who wards or guards, watchman" (a.1400), but also "a person in ward, a prisoner" (a. 1584: from ward "to guard" + suff. -er).11 Lat. servus is similarly a derivative, in our case a nomen postverbale of servare "to keep, retain" and must have meant originally *"retained (for service), hired" the same way retainer denotes "someone retained (for service), hired". [...]passive or intransitive senses also are found, albeit rarely: dlvidus (Accius, Gellius), dïviduus (Flaut.) "divided, separated" < dividere "to divide", concinnus (Flaut.) "well adjusted" < concinnare "to set right, adjust",12 truncus "lopped, trimmed" < truncare "to lop off", prïvi-gnus "stepson", lit. "born single" < prlvus "single" + gignere "to beget, bear, produce" (malï-gnus, "malicious", lit. "born evil", beni-gnus, etc.), prömiscus (Flaut.), prömiscuus (Livy) "mixed, indiscriminate"