different between service vs waiter

English

Alternative forms

• seruice (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s??v?s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?v?s/

Etymology 1

From Middle English servise, from Old French servise (French service), from the verb servir, from Latin servitium (compare Portuguese serviço, Italian servizio, Norman sèrvice, Spanish servicio), from servus (“servant; serf; slave”). Displaced native Old English þe?nung.

Noun

service (countable and uncountable, plural services)

1. An act of being of assistance to someone.
2. (economics) The practice of providing such a service as economic activity.
3. A department in a company, an organization, a government department, etc.
4. (computing) A function that is provided by one program or machine for another.

5. The state of being subordinate to or employed by an individual or group

6. The military.

7. A set of dishes or utensils.
   • 1997, Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Monthly Review Press, page 36:

     When their lavish fiestas ended they threw the silver service and even golden vessels from their balconies to be picked up by lucky passersby.

8. (sports) The act of initially starting, or serving, the ball in play in tennis, volleyball, and other games.

9. A religious rite or ritual.

10. (law) The serving, or delivery, of a summons or writ.
    • 1668 July 3, James Dalrymple, “Thomas Rue contra Andrew Hou?toun” in The Deci?ions of the Lords of Council & Se??ion I (Edinburgh, 1683), page 548:

      He Su?pends on the?e Rea?ons, that Thomas Rue had granted a general Di?charge to Adam Mu?het, who was his Conjunct, and correus debendi, after the alleadged Service, which Di?charged Mu?het, and con?equently Houstoun his Partner.

11. (Israel, West Bank, also in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) A taxi shared among unrelated passengers, each of whom pays part of the fare; often, it has a fixed route between cities.
12. A musical composition for use in churches.
13. (obsolete) Profession of respect; acknowledgment of duty owed.
14. (nautical) The materials used for serving a rope, etc., such as spun yarn and small lines.
15. Access to resources such as hotel rooms and web-based videos without transfer of the resources' ownership.

Usage notes

In British English, the indefinite article "a" is often used with “good service”, as in "A good service is operating on all London Underground lines", whereas this is not used in American English.

Antonyms

• (action or work that is produced and consumed): good
• capital

Derived terms

Related terms

• service à la française
• service à la russe

Translations

Verb

service (third-person singular simple present services, present participle servicing, simple past and past participle serviced)

1. (transitive) To serve.

2. (transitive) To perform maintenance.

3. (public relations, transitive) To supply (media outlets) with press releases etc.
   • 1977, Patricia Marshall, Citizen Participation Certification for Community Development (page 107)

     One obvious way is press releases, which should be sent to your region's reporters, editors and columnists, the wire services, professional publications. […] Servicing the media should be an everyday thing.

   • 1971, College and University Journal (volumes 10-11, page 9)

     […] instead of expending so much of their PR effort on servicing the media.

4. (transitive, agriculture, euphemistic) To inseminate through sexual intercourse.
5. (transitive, vulgar) To perform a sexual act upon.

6. (transitive, military, euphemistic) To attack.

   to service a target; target servicing

Synonyms

• (to serve): attend, wait on; See also Thesaurus:serve
• (to perform a sexual act): be with, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

Descendants

• ? Dutch: service
  • ? Indonesian: servis
• ? German: Service
• ? Hindi: ?????? (sarvis)
• ? Hungarian: szerviz
• ? Japanese: ???? (s?bisu)
• ? Korean: ??? (seobiseu)
• ? Russian: ?????? (servis)
• ? Ukrainian: ?????? (servis)

Translations

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

service (plural services)

2. Service tree.

Translations

Anagrams

• cerevis, scrieve

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English service.

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: ser?vice

Noun

service f or m (plural services)

1. service

French

Etymology

From Old French servise, borrowed from Latin servitium (compare Portuguese serviço, Italian servizio, Norman sèrvice, Spanish servicio), from servus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??.vis/

Noun

service m (plural services)

1. service
2. (tennis) service
3. (Switzerland, in the plural) cutlery

Derived terms

Related terms

• servir
• servant
• serf

Interjection

service

1. (Switzerland) you're welcome

Further reading

• “service” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• écrives

Norman

Alternative forms

• sèrvice (Jersey)

Etymology

From Old French servise, (compare French service), borrowed from Latin servitium, from servus.

Noun

service m (plural services)

1. (Guernsey) service

Old French

Noun

service m (oblique plural services, nominative singular services, nominative plural service)

1. Alternative form of servise

Swedish

Pronunciation

Noun

service c

1. service, the level of comfort offered by assistants and servants (the opposite of self-service)
2. maintenance and repair

Declension

Related terms

See also

• servis
• tjänst

English

Etymology

Late 14th century, "attendant, watchman," agent noun from the verb wait +? -er. Sense of "servant who waits at tables" is from late 15th century, originally in reference to household servants; in reference to inns, eating houses, etc., it is attested from 1660s. Feminine form waitress first recorded 1834.

The London Stock Exchange sense harks back to the early days of trading in coffee-shops.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?we?t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?we?t?/
• Rhymes: -e?t?(?)
• Hyphenation: wait?er

Noun

waiter (plural waiters, feminine waitress)

1. A male or female attendant who serves customers at their tables in a restaurant, café or similar.

2. Someone who waits for somebody or something; a person who is waiting.
   • 2013, Siciliani Luigi, Borowitz Michael, Moran Valerie, OECD Health Policy Studies: Waiting Time Policies in the Health Sector

     However, the NTPF also contained implicit negative incentives for the public sector by offering alternative private sector treatment for the longest waiters at no extra cost to patients or no penalty to public providers.

3. A person working as an attendant at the London Stock Exchange.
4. (obsolete) A vessel or tray on which something is carried, as dishes, etc.; a salver. (See etymology of dumbwaiter.)
5. (obsolete) A custom house officer; a tide waiter.
6. (obsolete) A watchman.

Derived terms

• coast waiter
• dumbwaiter
• landwaiter
• tide waiter

Related terms

• wait
• waitress

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ????? (u?t?)

Translations

See also

• barista
• bartender
• maître d'
• server

References

Old French

Verb

waiter

1. (Old Northern French, Anglo-Norman) Alternative form of gaitier

Conjugation

This verb conjugates as a first-group verb ending in -er. The forms that would normally end in *-ts, *-tt are modified to z, t. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (waiter)