Other forms: serves, serfs
A serf was a peasant bound by law to the land they worked. Bound as a serf, the lord's serfs, freed from serfdom.
The distinction from slavery is that a serf was tied to the land rather than owned outright and could not be sold away from it — a real difference, and a narrow one. Russia abolished serfdom in 1861, two years before American emancipation.
1nounserfA peasant bound by law to the land they worked.
“The serf had to work his lord's fields before he could tend his own.”
serf is a person.
Old French serf comes from Latin servus, a slave or servant. Serve is the same root.
Proto-Indo-European
*ser- (guard)
Latin
servus — slave, serf, servant
Old French
serf
Middle English
serf
English, today
serf
From Middle English serf, from Old French serf, from Latin servus (“slave, serf, servant”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA