servir
to serve
To provide or use something for a purpose or benefit
Encoding Strategies:
linguistic
serve
serve
+
-ir
verb suffix
Servir means to serve and is a direct cognate of the English word.
servir
to serve
To serve food or drinks to someone.
El mesero sirvió el vino en copas altasThe waiter served the wine in tall glasses
¿Te sirvo más sopa?Shall I serve you more soup?
to be useful, to serve a purpose
A natural extension of serving: when something serves a purpose, it's useful.
Este cuchillo no sirve para cortar panThis knife is not useful for cutting bread
¿Para qué sirve esta herramienta?What is this tool used for?
servirse
to help oneself (to food or drink)
When you serve yourself a meal, you're helping yourself to it.
Sírvete más arroz, hay bastanteHelp yourself to more rice, there's plenty
Los invitados se sirvieron de la mesa de buffetThe guests helped themselves from the buffet table
servirse de
to use, to make use of
Literally, to serve yourself from something, which actually means to make use of something for your own benefit. The 'de' marks the resource you are taking from (or serving yourself from).
Me serví de un mapa para encontrar el caminoI made use of a map to find my way
Nos servimos de la tecnología para mejorar el procesoWe used technology to improve the process