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View synonyms for humble pie

humble pie

noun

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


humble pie

noun

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


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Word History and Origins

Origin of humble pie1

1640–50; earlier phrase an umble pie, erroneous for a numble pie; numbles
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Word History and Origins

Origin of humble pie1

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
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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. eat humble pie, to be forced to apologize humbly; suffer humiliation:

    He had to eat humble pie and publicly admit his error.

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Example Sentences

Looking back, he says, it was a hefty and much needed helping of humble pie.

Her pen travelled with remarkable ease over the paper; the humble pie, it appeared, was being consumed without much difficulty.

I shrewdly suspect that that estimable gentleman is going to eat humble pie, of my baking, from his wife's recipe.

She forced her to accompany her to Baltimore to see Elaine, though she rebelled bitterly against this eating of "humble pie."

I do really assure you she won't; it's only wasting your time, and making you eat humble pie.

It was not by eating humble pie, fellow, that I have grown to what I am.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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