HUMBLE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Humble

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/hˈəmbəl/ Listen

adjective

Humble adj. (compar. humbler; superl. humblest)

1.

Near the ground; not high or lofty. "Thy humble nest built on the ground."

2.

Not pretentious or magnificent; unpretending; unassuming; modest; as, a humble cottage. Used to describe objects.

3.

Thinking lowly of one's self; claiming little for one's self; not proud, arrogant, or assuming; thinking one's self ill-deserving or unworthy, when judged by the demands of God; lowly; weak; modest. Used to describe people. "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." "She should be humble who would please." "Without a humble imitation of the divine Author of our... religion we can never hope to be a happy nation."

Humble plant (Bot.), a species of sensitive plant, of the genus Mimosa (Mimosa sensitiva).

To eat humble pie, to endure mortification; to submit or apologize abjectly; to yield passively to insult or humiliation; a phrase derived from a pie made of the entrails or humbles of a deer, which was formerly served to servants and retainers at a hunting feast. See Humbles.

Humble adj. Hornless. See Hummel. (Scot.)

verb

Humble v. t. (past & past part. humbled; pres. part. humbling)

1.

To bring low; to reduce the power, independence, or exaltation of; to lower; to abase; to humilate. "Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven's plagues Have humbled to all strokes." "The genius which humbled six marshals of France."

2.

To make humble or lowly in mind; to abase the pride or arrogance of; to reduce the self-sufficiently of; to make meek and submissive; often used rexlexively. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you."

Synonyms: To abase; lower; depress; humiliate; mortify; disgrace; degrade.

See images of 'Humble'

Etymology of 'Humble'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Humble" Quotes from Famous Books

... allies, and Polykrates is very powerful at sea. It will be time to humble him, when we have used him to help us in conquering Egypt. For the present I entreat you to suppress all personal feeling, and keep the success of our great plan alone in view. I am empowered to say this in the king's name, and to show his ring in ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... however, various mortifications awaited Schiller. It was in vain that he discharged the humble duties of his station with the most strict fidelity, and even, it is said, with superior skill: he was a suspected person, and his most innocent actions were misconstrued, his slightest faults were visited with the full measure of official severity. His busy imagination aggravated ...

— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... been born and lived all their lives. There had been a division in the old Ackley family years before. One of the daughters had married against her mother's wish and had been disinherited. She had married a poor man by the name of Gill, and shared his humble lot in sight of her former home and her sister and mother living in prosperity, until she had borne three daughters; then she died, worn out with ...

— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... ills, that may the course attend— Then with the joys of home contented rest— Here, meek-eyed Peace with humble Plenty lend Their aid united still, to make thee blest. 60 To ease each pain, and to increase each joy— Here mutual Love shall fix thy tender wife, Whose offspring shall thy youthful care employ And gild with brightest rays the ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... wedding-day had disappeared from her father's house. Burdened thus with two centuries of life, she lingered on a few lonely years, and then sank into the grave; and the good, simple villagers whisper that the strange gardener was no other than the Lord Jesus, who thus provided for His humble child an escape from a union which would have been the source of bitterest woe. After this it is almost an anti-climax to refer to a Scottish tale in which a bridegroom was similarly spirited away. As he was leaving the church after the ceremony, a tall dark man met him and asked him ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

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