Humility

How to spell humility

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce humility

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does humility mean?

1. nounA modest, unassuming view of one's own importance or abilities.

Humility in a sentence

• She accepted the award with genuine humility and thanked her whole team.

• True leadership often requires the humility to admit a mistake.

Where does humility come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun humilitas, meaning 'lowness' or 'a humble state of mind', which was built on the adjective humilis, 'low' or 'lowly'. That adjective in turn grew out of humus, the plain Latin word for 'ground' or 'earth', so the original image is of something close to the soil rather than reaching for the heights. English took the word in during the 1300s by way of Old French humilite, mainly in religious writing about a modest, unproud attitude. The same earthy humus root still lives on in the gardening term 'humus' for rich soil and even in 'exhume', which literally means to take something out of the ground. Keeping that 'down to the earth' sense in mind helps with the single l and the smooth -ility ending, where the unstressed vowels are easy to mishear.

How the word is built

• humil- (from Latin humilis: low, lowly, ultimately from humus: ground, earth)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)