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humble pie

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noun

humility forced upon someone, often under embarrassing conditions; humiliation.
Obsolete. a pie made of the viscera and other inferior parts of deer or the like.

Idioms

    eat humble pie, to be forced to apologize humbly; suffer humiliation: He had to eat humble pie and publicly admit his error.

Origin of humble pie

1640–50; earlier phrase an umble pie, erroneous for a numble pie; see numbles
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for humble pie

crow, dirt, pride

Examples from the Web for humble pie

Historical Examples of humble pie

  • In that respect I often have here to eat a slice of humble-pie.

    A Poor Man's House

    Stephen Sydney Reynolds

  • Well, the sooner he has his plateful of humble-pie the better; eh, lads?

    Syd Belton

    George Manville Fenn

  • Come, Gildy, knuckle under and eat your humble-pie like a man.

    Rejected of Men

    Howard Pyle

  • Meanwhile, George Neston was steadily and unflinchingly devouring his humble-pie.

    Mr. Witt's Widow

    Anthony Hope

  • Could she go to him (in person or by writing) and in his presence eat as much as a single mouthful of humble-pie?

    The Seven Darlings

    Gouverneur Morris

British Dictionary definitions for humble pie

humble pie

noun

(formerly) a pie made from the heart, entrails, etc, of a deer
eat humble pie to behave or be forced to behave humbly; be humiliated

Word Origin for humble pie

C17: earlier an umble pie, by mistaken word division from a numble pie, from numbles offal of a deer, from Old French nombles, ultimately from Latin lumbulus a little loin, from lumbus loin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012