Humble

//ˈhʌmbəl// adj, name, noun, verb, slang

adj, name, noun, verb, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An arrest based on weak evidence intended to demean or punish the subject. slang

    "You're on a corner in my district, it ain't gonna be about no humble, it ain't gonna be about no loitering charge, nothing like that. There gonna be some biblical shit happening to you on the way to that motherfucking jail wagon."

  2. 2
    Alternative form of hummel. Northern-England, Scotland, also, alt-of, alternative, attributive

    "humble cattle"

Verb
  1. 1
    To defeat or reduce the power, independence, or pride of. ambitransitive

    "Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven's plagues have humbled to all strokes."

  2. 2
    To hum. intransitive, obsolete

    "humbling and bumbling"

  3. 3
    Alternative form of hummel. alt-of, alternative, transitive
  4. 4
    cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of wordnet
  5. 5
    To make humble or lowly; to make less proud or arrogant; to make meek and submissive. often, reflexive, transitive

    "And you say you've been humbled in love / Cut down in your love / Forced to kneel in the mud next to me"

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    cause to be unpretentious wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Not pretentious or magnificent; unpretending; unassuming.

    "He lives in a humble one-bedroom cottage."

  2. 2
    Having a low opinion of oneself; not proud, arrogant, or assuming; modest.

    "But he giueth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proude, but giueth grace vnto the humble."

Adjective
  1. 1
    of low birth or station (‘base’ is archaic in this sense) wordnet
  2. 2
    marked by meekness or modesty; not arrogant or prideful wordnet
  3. 3
    used of unskilled work (especially domestic work) wordnet
  4. 4
    low or inferior in station or quality wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A place name:; A small town in Langeland municipality, island of Langeland, southern Denmark. countable, uncountable
  3. 3
    A place name:; An unincorporated community in Russell County, Kentucky, United States. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    A place name:; A city in Harris County, Texas, United States, the former home of Humble Oil. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
abaseabasehumiliatehumiliateinferiorlowly

Example

More examples

"Luciano, the underdog in the match, will be trying to make the champ eat humble pie."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English humble, from Old French humble, umble, humle, from Latin humilis (“low, slight, hence mean, humble”) (compare Greek χαμηλός (khamēlós, “on the ground, low, trifling”)), from humus (“the earth, ground”), humi (“on the ground”). See homage, and compare chameleon, humiliate. Displaced native Old English ēaþmōd.

Etymology 2

From Middle English humblen (“to humble”), from the adjective above.

Etymology 3

From Middle English *humblen, *humbelen (suggested by humblynge (“a humming, a faint rumbling”)), frequentative of Middle English hummen (“to hum”), equivalent to hum + -le.

Related phrases

eat humble piehumble piehumble planthumble-heartedhumble-heartednessin my humble opinion

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.