meek
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English meek, meke, meoc, a borrowing from Old Norse mjúkr (“soft; meek”), from Proto-Germanic *meukaz, *mūkaz (“soft; supple”), from Proto-Indo-European *mewg-, *mewk- (“slick, slippery; to slip”).
Cognate with Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk mjuk (“soft”), Norwegian Bokmål myk (“soft”), and Danish myg (“supple”), Dutch muik (“soft, overripe”), dialectal German mauch (“dry and decayed, rotten”), Mauche (“malanders”). Compare also Old English smūgan (“to slide, slip”), Welsh mwyth (“soft, weak”), Latin ēmungō (“to blow one's nose”), Tocharian A muk- (“to let go, give up”), Lithuanian mùkti (“to slip away from”), Old Church Slavonic мъчати (mŭčati, “to chase”), Ancient Greek μύσσομαι (mússomai, “to blow the nose”), Sanskrit मुञ्चति (muñcati, “to release, let loose”).
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /miːk/
Audio (UK) (file)
- (General American) IPA(key): /mik/
- Rhymes: -iːk
Adjective[edit]
meek (comparative meeker, superlative meekest)
- Humble, non-boastful, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Matthew 5:5:
- Blessed are the meeke: for they shall inherit the earth.
- 1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son:
- Mrs. Wickam was a meek woman...who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else...
- Submissive, dispirited.
- 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street:
- What if they were wolves instead of lambs? They'd eat her all the sooner if she was meek to them. Fight or be eaten.
- 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street:
Synonyms[edit]
- See also Thesaurus:humble
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
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Verb[edit]
meek (third-person singular simple present meeks, present participle meeking, simple past and past participle meeked)
Translations[edit]
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/iːk
- Rhymes:English/iːk/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English verbs
- American English
- en:Personality