# a good and faithful servant

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/good-and-faithful-servant
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

Someone praised for loyal, diligent, and dependable service.

## Examples

- After forty years, they called him a good and faithful servant.
- The tribute honoured her as a good and faithful servant who had kept the library running for three decades.
- At the retirement dinner the chairman raised his glass to a good and faithful servant, a man who had never sought the spotlight yet whose quiet reliability had held the department together through crisis after crisis.

## Origin

The phrase is the master's commendation in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:21: well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things. It is spoken to the servants who put their master's money to work rather than hiding it. Within the parable the praise rewards not brilliance but reliability and diligence with what one has been entrusted — being trustworthy in small things as the qualification for larger ones. In English a good and faithful servant is a warm tribute to steady, loyal service, often used at retirements and memorials, sometimes lightly to mark long and uncomplaining devotion to a job or a cause.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.