serf

«serf» in Mova's school dictionary: A serf was a farm worker long ago, in the Middle Ages… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (serf, serfs)

meaning for a pupil

1) A serf was a farm worker long ago, in the Middle Ages, who had to live and work on a lord's land and could not leave it. tree →

2) Serfs were not slaves, because they could not be sold alone, but they were not free. tree →

sense in the lessons

History lessons: life in the Middle Ages in Europe and Russia; the lord owned the land, the serfs farmed it and gave him part of the crops and days of work. In maths stories serfs may be counted like any people. In stories it shows someone poor and not free.

examples

• The lord had 30 serfs. tree →
• Each serf worked 3 days a week for the lord. tree →
• 12 serfs worked in the fields. tree →
• How many serfs were left? tree →
• Serfs gave part of their harvest to the lord of the manor. tree →
• A serf needed the lord's permission to marry or move away. tree →
• In the story, the serf's son dreamed of being free. tree →
• Serfdom ended in Russia long ago. tree →

note

Countable: a serf, serfs; the system is «serfdom». A person counted in a story; no clue to the operation. Trap: «serf» sounds like «surf» (waves at the beach) but means something very different.

In the corpora

• Most Ukrainian peasants in the Russian Empire were serfs until 1861; in Austrian Galicia serfdom ended in 1848.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «serf» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.