Humiliate

//hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt// verb

verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause to be ashamed; to injure the dignity and self-respect of. transitive

    "The bully tried to humiliate the other students during lunch."

  2. 2
    cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of wordnet
  3. 3
    To make humble; to lower in condition or status. transitive
  4. 4
    To defeat overwhelmingly. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
abasehumbledebasedemeandisgracehumble

Example

More examples

"Once social change begins it can not be reversed. You can not un-educate the person who has learned to read. You can not humiliate the person who feels pride. You can not oppress the people who are not afraid anymore."

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin humiliātus, perfect passive participle of humiliō (“to abase, humble”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from Latin humilis (“lowly, humble”), from humus (“ground; earth, soil”); see humble.

Related phrases

self respect

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