a: camera obscura b: a device that consists of a lightproof chamber with an aperture fitted with a lens and a shutter through which the image of an object is projected onto a surface for recording (as on film) or for translation into electrical impulses (as for television broadcast). â off camera.
serf. 1  a person in a condition of servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another. 2  a slave.
Of Russian origin: Serfs. For hundreds of years, from as early as the 11th century up to the middle of the 19th, Russians lived in a feudal society. At the bottom was a huge class of peasants, very few of them free. Most toiled their lives away as krepostnoy krestyanin, or unfree peasants, commonly known as serfs. From the 11th till the end of the 16th century the elements of serfdom were scattered among certain classes of the rural population. Not all serfs were the same. Smerds were serfs allowed to own property, although itâs also been a term used to refer to rural folk in general.