humility

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of pride

Nouns

1. humility, humbleness; meekness, lowliness, lowness; [self-]-abasement; submission, resignation; modesty, blush, suffusion, confusion.

2. humiliation, degradation, mortification; letdown, comedown, setdown; condescension, affability (see courtesy). Slang, comeuppance. See servility.

Verbs

1. be humble, deign, vouchsafe, condescend; humble or demean oneself, stoop, submit; yield the palm; lower one's tone, sober down; not have a word to say for oneself; lose face, feel shame, eat dirt, crow, or humble pie; blush, redden, change color; swallow one's pride, hang one's head, come down off one's high horse, look foolish, feel small. Informal, sing small, draw in one's horns.

2. humble, humiliate, abase; let, set, or take down; bring to one's knees, cut down to size, put in one's place, put into the shade (see disrepute); discountenance, stare out of countenance; confuse, mortify, deflate, disgrace, crush; take down a peg or notch. Slang, high-hat, take or knock the piss out of.

Adjectives

1. humble, lowly, meek, as meek as a lamb or as Moses; modest, sober-minded; unoffended; submissive, servile (see servility); democratic, affable.

2. humbled, downcast, bowed down, resigned, abashed, ashamed, dashed; out of countenance; down in the mouth; on one's knees, browbeaten. Slang, faced.

Adverbs — humbly, meekly, with one's tail between one's legs, with downcast eyes, on bended knee; on all fours, cap in hand.

Quotations — Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth (Bible), No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt), And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted (Bible), It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble ( Jane Austen), The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error (William Jennings Bryan).

Antonyms, see pride.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. meekness, timidity, self-abasement, self-abnegation, submissiveness, servility, obsequiousness, mortification, reserve, lowliness, demureness, unobtrusiveness, subservience, subjection, humbleness, submission, abasement, diffidence, self-effacement, fawning, obedience, passiveness, nonresistance, resignation, bashfulness, shyness, timorousness, inferiority complex; see also docility , modesty 1 .

Ant. pride*, vainglory, conceit.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) (VOCABULARY WORD) n.

[hyoo MIL uh tee]

humbleness, modesty, the absence of arrogance or pride.

She accepted the award with great humility.

SYN.: humbleness, modesty, unpretentiousness, lowliness, meekness, reserve, diffidence, sheepishness, obsequiousness, self-abasement. ''Nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves.''—William Law. ''A noble mind in a low estate.''—Jane Porter.

ANT.: arrogance, pride, haughtiness

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Lack of vanity or self-importance: humbleness, lowliness, meekness, modesty. See ATTITUDE, BIG, SELF-LOVE.