When I finally walked out of that hotel and out of menial service forever, I felt as though, in a field of flowers, my nose had been held unpleasantly long to the worms and manure at their roots.
Menial service is an anachronism,--the refuse of mediaeval barbarism.
Here all honest minds turn back and ask: Is menial service permanent or necessary?
Then and there I disowned menial service for me and my people.
Upon such spiritual myths was the anachronism of American slavery built, and this was the degradation that once made menial servants the aristocrats among colored folk.
Under the cry of "Freedom" they greatly relaxed the grip of selfish interests by restricting menial service, securing the right of property in handiwork and regulating public taxes; distributing land ownership and freeing trade and barter.
It lay, as every Negro soon knew and knows, in escape frommenial serfdom.
It is strong and steadfast, though, and in time is always victorious over its menial opposition, for what is history but the past tense of truth, and it is justly said that veritas numquam perit, truth never dies.
I am amazed, however, that no one shirks from their job, no matter how menial or trifling.
There was a servant class, composed of young men and boys, who lived in the families of men of prominence and performed menial offices.
The Sioux then turned to the slave wife, commanding her to perform the menial office.
Even in the cities, but for a class of population, which our institutions have marked as servile, it would be scarcely possible to preserve the ordinary habitudes of civilized life, by commanding the necessary menial and domestic service.
I speak not so much of menial servants, who are generally of a superior class, as of agricultural and manufacturing laborers.
He is crowded down, down, down through the most menial callings, to the bottom of society.
Behold the renowned Doctor Gabriel Ras Mousa, who hath studied all arts and sciences in the world, who hath unveiled Nature in her most secret operations, and can make her submissive as a menial to his will.
He was immediately within a dark entrance or vestibule; the astonished and angry menial venting his wrath, in no measured phrases, on the intruder.
I'll bear thee hence, my mistress; And thou shalt live my menial slave.
It is the attitude of the unions, we are told, that in the North represents the chief obstacle to the progress of the negro away from the menial services and the unskilled employments.
To some were assigned the menial offices, such as turning the handmills, drawing the water, and preparing the food for their master; while others were engaged in spinning and weaving, under the direct oversight of their lady mistress.
Yet the Syssitia, or public meals, deprived her of the society of husband and sons, and took from her domestic cares because they were deemed too menial for a free Spartan.
To be employed in menial offices about his person was a mark of confidence.
I would swear those hands had never done menialwork for a thousand years.
He didn't know why he should have been so amazed at finding her occupying a menial position in this household.
We saw no female servants, and we learned afterward that they did no menial work, except the serving of the meals, which was rather an artistic duty.
I drove asses, gleaned in the fields, and did the menial work of men.
He explained in a firm but kindly way that Daoud did have a choice but that the alternative was a life of unrelieved wretchedness as a ghulman, a menial slave.
Or worst of all, cast out of the Mamelukes to spend the rest of his life as a ghulman, a menial slave.
The novice is obliged to perform the lowest menial offices, and the most repulsive duties of the sick-room and the hospital; and he is sent forth, for weeks together, to beg his bread like a common mendicant.
She fasted, wore hair-cloth, scourged herself, washed dishes among the servants, and did their most menial work.
A smile, or the common courtesy of thanks from her lips, repaid me a hundred-fold for the performance of the most menial office.
The women were doing menial work, such as scrubbing, which the men refused to do.
She worked in a corner quite by herself and attended to menial jobs, such as sweeping and picking up scraps.
The next day forty-six of those taken, were driven off to Richmond, like a parcel of menial slaves, not knowing why they were taken, or what they were taken for.
That is to say, they looked with contempt upon manual labor; regarding it as menial and proper only for slaves to perform.
The Spaniards assumed the office of overseers, while the natives performed all the menial and painful labor.
He spared their lives, but made themmenial slaves.
His whole force consisted of one hundred and ten seamen, five hundred and fifty-three soldiers, two hundred Indians, and a few Indian women for menial service.
He was treated with great consideration by the Esterhazys, and, menial or not, he lived on their bounty and in the friendliest relations with them.
Thus Miss Townsend remarks: "Our indignation is roused at finding a great artist placed in the position of an upper servant, and required to perform duties almost menial in their nature.
Menial Duties We get a curious insight into the social conditions of the musicians of this time in the bearing of Haydn towards Porpora and his pupil.
All, from the monarch on His throne to the menial at the mill, were made to feel the terrible weight of that rod.
The general inquired what had become of the stranger; to which the gardener replied, "He is now a mere menial in Purgatory, and can never be born again.
But there was more bullying of small boys by large boys at these schools and the smaller boys became menial servants of their seniors.
The few poor students were known as servitors and paid for their education by menial work.
His Berthas and Gretchens, who had been exceptional figures in the warring camps of the ancient Teutons, were therefore only transferred into a similar yet menial relation in the housed home.
It put faith and expectation into these stolid, menial lives and took them out of the ranks of the idle and discontented dullards who, in other countries, are a source of danger or decay.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "menial" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
