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[ adjective ] inclined or willing to submit to orders or wishes of others or showing such inclination
Examples "submissive servants" "a submissive reply" "replacing troublemakers with more submissive people" Used in print (Philip Reaves, "Who Rules the Marriage Bed?"...)The meekest , most submissive wife of today is a tiger by her mother 's or grandmother 's standards . `` Very few wives '' , says Dr._Calderone , `` who balance the checkbook , fix the car , choose where the family will live and deal with the tradesmen , are suddenly going_to become submissive where sex is concerned . (Irving Fineman, Woman of Valor: The Life of Henrietta...)One is so accustomed to think_of men as the privileged who need but ask and receive , and women as submissive and yielding , that our sympathies are usually enlisted on the side of the man whose love is not returned , and we condemn the woman as a coquette . She could not resist the opportunity `` of showing her superiority in argument over a man '' which she had remarked as one of the `` feminine follies '' of Sara_Sullam ; and in her forthright way , Henrietta , who in her story of Sara had indicated her own unwillingness `` to think_of men as the privileged '' and `` women as submissive and yielding '' , felt obliged to defend vigorously any statement of hers to which Morris_Jastrow took the slightest exception - he objected to her stand on the Corbin affair , as_well_as on the radical reforms of Dr._Wise of Hebrew_Union_College - until once , in sheer desperation , he wrote that he had given_up hope they would ever agree on anything . Related terms domineering dominated abject cringing compliant bowed obedient humble subordinate unassertive |
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[ adjective ] willing to submit without resistance to authority; deferent
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[ adjective ] abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant
Synonyms Examples "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" Related terms |
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