serve
verb
uk/sɜːv/ us [ T ]
to provide people or a place with products or services or something that is needed:
serve customers/clients
There is a new 24-hour bus that serves the airport.
[ I or T ]
to help achieve something or to be useful as something:
serve to do sth The new procedures serve to stop economic growth.
The phone application needs to serve a purpose.
[ T ] COMMERCE
in a shop, restaurant, or hotel, to deal with a customer by taking their order, showing or selling them goods, etc.:
She spends all day on the shop floor serving customers.
Are you being served?
[ I or T ]
to provide food or drinks:
He was served dinner in his room.
Breakfast is served between 7 and 9.
[ I or T ]
to spend time doing a job, training for a job, or having a responsibility:
serve as sth He became a city commissioner and went on to serve as mayor.
After serving an apprenticeship with his father, he received a scholarship to study in Italy.
[ T ] LAW
to give a legal document to someone, demanding that they go to a court of law or that they obey an order:
The pension trustees served a writ last Friday in New York.
serve sb with sth She was served with a summons to court.
Phrasal verb
serve sth out