Picture someone keeping low to the ground, not lifting themselves up above others. That's the whole word: 'low'. A humble person doesn't put themselves high; a humble home or thing sits low and plain, nothing fancy; and to humble someone is to bring them back down low. Adjective and verb are the same picture — one describes staying low, the other pushes something down to low.
From the word’s history
humble comes from Latin 'humilis' (low, lowly, on the ground), itself from 'humus' (earth, ground) — literally 'close to the earth'.
humble 源自拉丁文 humilis（低、卑下、貼著地面），而 humilis 又來自 humus（土地、地面）——字面就是「貼近大地、放得很低」。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entry 'humble'
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原始詞典資料13 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Humblename
- 1
A surname.
- 2
A place name:
- 3
A place name:
- 4
A place name:
humbleadj詞源 1/ˈhʌmbəl/
- 1
Not pretentious or magnificent; unpretending; unassuming.
- He lives in a humble one-bedroom cottage.
- 17th century, Abraham Cowley, The Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches The wise example of the heavenly lark. Thy fellow poet, Cowley, mark, Above the clouds let thy proud music sound, Thy humble nest build on the ground.
- 2
Having a low position or a low opinion of oneself; not proud, arrogant, or assuming; modest.
- She ſhould be humble, who would pleaſe; And ſhe muſt ſuffer, who can love.
- Rosol's 65 winners to Nadal's 41 was one of the crucial statistics in the 3hr 18min match that ended in a 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 triumph labelled a "miracle" by Rosol, who was humble enough to offer commiserations to Nadal.
humblenoun詞源 1/ˈhʌmbəl/
- 1
People with a low position or a low opinion of themselves; those who are not proud, arrogant, or assuming.
- But he giueth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proude, but giueth grace vnto the humble.
- c. 590 AD: Liber Regulae Pastoralis by Pope Gregory I "The humble are to be admonished not to be more submissive than is right".
- 2
slangAn arrest based on weak evidence intended to demean or punish the subject.
- 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.
- Years ago, guys on Baltimore's streets would have, by definition, called an arrest for loitering a "humble."
humbleverb詞源 2/ˈhʌmbəl/
- 1
To defeat or reduce the power, independence, or pride of.
- Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven's plagues have humbled to all strokes.
- Humble yourselues therefore vnder the mighty hand of God, that hee may exalt you in due time,
- 2
To make humble or lowly; to make less proud or arrogant; to make meek and submissive.
- And you say you've been humbled in love / Cut down in your love / Forced to kneel in the mud next to me
- The final, quiet moments of the book return to Sten; his experience of his sick son humbles him, just as his aging body humbles him, and Boyle seems to suggest this makes him a better man.
humbleverb詞源 3/ˈhʌmbəl/
- 1
obsoleteTo hum.
- humbling and bumbling
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
- hummel
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。