menial

What it means

1. Of or relating to work normally performed by a servant.

   She was not proposing to go out again, so he got her slippers and took off her boots. It delighted him to perform menial offices.

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXX, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   1 more example

   She hung round him, watching his every look as if she grudged the veriest menial offices from the servants; and she almost scolded him for not eating, when he had done justice enough to the good things set before him to have satisfied even the cook herself.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Arrived at Home”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 85

2. Of or relating to unskilled work.

   menial job

   3 more examples

   Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat; it was not the first menial work he had done in his life.

   1910 October 1, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Queer Feet”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC

   I didn't see how sweeping and scrubbing a building was any preparation for the trade of electrician; but I did know that in the books all the boys started with the most menial tasks and by making good ultimately won to the ownership of the whole concern.

   1913 August, Jack London, John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC

   For instance, controlling for the above-mentioned variables, migrants to Tangerang or Samarinda (rather than Medan) have a significantly greater chance of getting a craft (as opposed to menial) job.

   2011, Chris Manning, Sudarno Sumarto, Employment, Living Standards and Poverty in Contemporary Indonesia, →ISBN

3. Servile; low; mean.

   a menial wretch

In a sentence

She hung round him, watching his every look as if she grudged the veriest menial offices from the servants; and she almost scolded him for not eating, when he had done justice enough to the good things set before him to have satisfied even the cook herself.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Arrived at Home”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 85

Where it comes from

1. Latinmānsiō“house”
2. Vulgar Latin*mānsiōnāta
3. Anglo-Normanmesnal
4. Middle Englishmeyneal
5. Englishmenial

From Middle English meyneal, from Anglo-Norman mesnal, from maisnee (“household”), from Vulgar Latin *mānsiōnāta, from Latin mānsiō (“house”).