The word humble was borrowed in the late 1200s from Old French, where it was spelled umble, umele, humle, and also humble, but held the same definition. That's from Latin humilis, which could mean "lowly" but more literally may be interpreted as "on the ground". The root there is humus, or "earth", which (by way of Proto-Italic) comes from the Proto-Indo-European word degom, also "earth". Humilis, through Old French umilite, is also the root of the word humility, but my favorite descendant of the word is omerta, the Mafia's code of obedience and secrecy. Apparently that used to mean "humility" as its earlier form umilta (an allusion to a mafioso's loyalty to the gang leader), which also traces to the Latin word. All three words have trended upwards in usage in recent years.
1 Comment
Dana Altschuler
8/16/2022 02:46:59 am
Thank you for referring humus, earth to humility. Im taking a 12 step workshop in which the instructor explained 'humilty' using these as well.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
Archives
May 2022
TAGS |