subserve

verb

1. To be subservient to.

   “Ah, if only he had asked her to subserve him, to be his slave!”

2. To serve to promote (an end); to be useful to.

   “Calculating by spherical trigonometry, and assuming the same obliquity, I obtain 3 dundas and 40 pulas for the ascensional arc, giving a difference in time of 3 pulas, or about one of our minutes; an error so small, that even were the Indian astronomer aware of its existence he would disregard it, satisfied that the practical purposes which his labours subserve, are, notwithstanding, carried out with sufficient accuracy.”

   “Their principles will cease to be dear to them, whenever they shall cease to subserve the purposes of good order.”

   “'[…] Human laws we respect—ha, ha!—you and I, because they subserve our convenience, and just so long. When they tend to our destruction, 'tis, of course, another thing.'”

3. To assist in carrying out.

   “'Tis a greater credit to know the ways of captivating Nature, and making her subserve our purposes, than to have learnt all the intrigues of policy.”

   “The unlearned capacities that underpin language acquisition constitute a uniquely human complex of non-linguistic dispositions and mechanisms that also subserve other cognitive functions.”