humility

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English humilite,^[2] borrowed from Old French humilite, also umelite, now humilité,^[3][4][5][6] from Latin humilitās (“lowness, small stature; insignificance; meekness”),^[3][4][7] from humilis (“low, humble”),^[4][7][5] literally “on the ground”, from humus (“earth, ground”),^[3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *dhghem- (“earth”).^[3][5] The French word is recorded in the 11th century,^[4] and the Anglo-Norman one from the early 12th century, meaning humility, meekness, lowliness and also kindness.^[8] Dictionary.com takes the English word directly from Latin.^[9] It is related to humble.^[5][4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The quality of being humble, of having a lowly opinion of oneself; meekness, the opposite of pride: about 1315, in the poems of William of Shoreham,^[4] which the MED dates to before 1333; its earliest quotation is from the Speculum Guy de Warewyke, about 1300.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin noun meant lowness, smallness and insignificance, and only in Church Latin meekness;^[3] it is this Christian virtue that English borrowed.^[2][3] In the Mercian hymns the Latin word is glossed with a native Old English word.^[3] In Middle English it also meant humble behaviour, and with all humility meant very humbly.^[2] Chaucer used it 27 times and Gower 10.^[10] An act of humility, with a plural, is recorded from 1612, and the sense “humble or low rank or condition” from 1623, in Cockeram's dictionary.^[4][11] Johnson (1755) defined it as freedom from pride and modesty, quoting Hooker and Shakespeare's Richard III.^[12] From 1634 humility was also a local name in New England for several birds of the snipe family.^[4][7]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the earliest MED quotation.^[2]
• c. 1315 – the quality of being humble, meekness.^[4]
• 1612 – an act of humility.^[4][11]
• 1623 – humble condition or rank.^[4][11]
• 1634 – a name for North American snipes.^[4]
• 1755 – Johnson: “freedom from pride; modesty”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being humble; modesty and freedom from pride or arrogance: He accepted the award with genuine humility.^[13][7][4]
2. Low condition or rank; unpretentiousness.^[4][14]
3. (New England) Any of several snipes or related shore birds.^[7][4]

Related words

• humble
• humiliate
• humiliation
• humus

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press