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Humility   /hjumˈɪlɪti/   Listen
noun
Humility  n.  (pl. humilities)  
1.
The state or quality of being humble; freedom from pride and arrogance; lowliness of mind; a modest estimate of one's own worth; a sense of one's own unworthiness through imperfection and sinfulness; self-abasement; humbleness. "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind."
2.
An act of submission or courtesy. "With these humilities they satisfied the young king."
Synonyms: Lowliness; humbleness; meekness; modesty; diffidence. Humility, Modesty, Diffidence. Diffidence is a distrust of our powers, combined with a fear lest our failure should be censured, since a dread of failure unconnected with a dread of censure is not usually called diffidence. It may be carried too far, and is not always, like modesty and humility, a virtue. Modesty, without supposing self-distrust, implies an unwillingness to put ourselves forward, and an absence of all over-confidence in our own powers. Humility consists in rating our claims low, in being willing to waive our rights, and take a lower place than might be our due. It does not require of us to underrate ourselves.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Humility" Quotes from Famous Books



... purchasers would be moving in shortly. To press the matter would have seemed to be doubting his word, and never in their lives had any one of them ever spoken to a person of the class called "gentleman" except with deference and humility. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... hast bene Hall? Prin. With three or foure Logger-heads, amongst 3. or fourescore Hogsheads. I haue sounded the verie base string of humility. Sirra, I am sworn brother to a leash of Drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dicke, and Francis. They take it already vpon their confidence, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the King of Curtesie: telling me flatly I am no proud Iack like Falstaffe, but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... most tragic moment of his life. He felt as if the world could never be the same to him again. And yet he hated the judge. Why it was he could not tell; but even as he spoke, even as he made this most momentous confession, his heart steeled against his father. In spite of his humility, in spite of his suffering, in spite of what it must have cost him to have spoken the words to which he had just listened, he still hated him. The man had wrecked his mother's life, robbed her of her ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... short, he was an extraordinary and very valuable man, much admired by the gentry; even those of the best quality, and by all others of the more inferior rank, that had any manner of regard for probity, sagacity, diligence, and humility. I say humility, because, though he was so much famed for his knowledge, and might, therefore, have lived very reputably without his trade, yet he continued it to his death, not thinking it to be at all beneath him. Mr. BAGFORD and he used frequently to converse together, and when they ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... thus gained by chance—a fact which should imbue us with humility as we contemplate the remaining uncertainties (as well as the certainties) about nuclear warfare. What we have learned enables us, nonetheless, to see more clearly. We know, for instance, that some of the earlier speculations about the after-effects of a global nuclear war were ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency


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