Etymologically
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humility

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Pronunciation

  • /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/[1]

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]
  • 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