adjective
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patient, long-suffering, or submissive in disposition or nature; humble
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spineless or spiritless; compliant
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an obsolete word for gentle
Usage
What does meek mean? When used in a positive way, meek describes someone who shows patient restraint. When used negatively, it means overly submissive. The positive sense of meek implies that someone is able to remain calm and subdued even when being provoked. Its negative use is perhaps more common, and is intended to indicate that someone is being too passive. The word meek is often associated with Christian virtues due to its use in a well-known Bible passage. Example: I know you’re naturally reserved, but you can’t be so meek during job interviews.
Synonym Usage
See gentle.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of meek
First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English meke, meoc, from Old Norse mjūkr “soft, mild, meek”
Explanation
The adjective meek describes a person who is willing to go along with whatever other people want to do, like a meek classmate who won't speak up, even when he or she is treated unfairly. A meek person can also be humble, but these words aren't quite synonyms. If you are humble, you don't want a lot of attention, like the humble athlete who has a truly excellent performance yet after the game, tells reporters that it was group effort by the whole team. A meek person, on the other hand, would never think a reporter would ever want to talk to him or her, and if asked, would probably try to get someone else, someone more "worthy," to do it.
Vocabulary lists containing meek
Touching Spirit Bear
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The Cay
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"Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Those with tickets for Saturday must have thought the prospect of seeing any play was remote when Pakistan offered a meek surrender on day one.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
In this context, even Yabloko’s meek peace platform was too potentially damaging to permit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
Bangs were for the meek, the insecure, those with something to hide — or alternatively those going through some kind of life crisis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
By transforming Parks into a meek, accidental activist whose only deficit was physical fatigue, the dominant cultural narrative effectively stripped her of her radicalism.
From Salon ● May 20, 2026
And Perry was puzzled; he could not fathom why Dick, usually so full of himself, should suddenly, when he had good cause to gloat, be meek, look wilted and sad.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
First, riverbank lupine snuck into the garden on a mislabeled seed package, swamping meeker plants.
From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2023
But Asian American food is not the Westernization of Asian flavor, like the sweet tikka masalas and sticky General Tsos adapted for a presumed meeker American palate.
From Salon ● May 26, 2022
But the evening quickly becomes awkward, as the incorrigible alpha male Lucas teases and pokes at the meeker Adam, making unreasonable demands on him and Eva until Adam finally breaks and spills some embarrassing secrets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2022
The tracks belonged to a smaller, meeker herbivore no taller than a person, not a ferocious giant carnivore, scientists said in a paper published Thursday in the journal Historical Biology.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
A meeker woman you could never hope to win.
From The Wagnerian Romances by Gertrude Hall Brownell
The 2020 high school football season has ended in West Virginia with the meekest of whimpers.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 2, 2020
I witnessed her open her eyes and says in the meekest whisper of a voice: “I want to get off this merry-go-round. I want to go home.”
From Slate ● Apr. 6, 2020
The lead Heather is fat-positive, the henchman is genderqueer, and the meekest member is a black lesbian.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2019
Jack appears in just one photograph, in which his son has captured him at his meekest.
From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2018
It had long seemed a curious contradiction to Palmer, that among the three kids rollicking on the field, Henry was the tallest yet also the meekest.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
