Humility
lack of pride or arrogance
Humility is the quality of being humble and kind. While older definitions, such as the 1998 Oxford Dictionary entry, described humility as having a "low opinion of oneself" or "not being proudful", more recent psychological and philosophical definitions emphasize having an "accurate opinion of oneself". This modern view includes expressing modesty appropriately, possessing clear goal orientation, openness, broad-mindedness, and a non-imposing mentality.
Humility also refers to a proper sense of self-regard. It may be misinterpreted as the capacity to endure humiliation through self-denigration, with this misconception arising from the confusion of humility with traits like submissiveness and meekness.
Etymology
The term "humility" comes from the Latin noun humilitas, related to the adjective humilis, which may be translated as "humble", but also as "grounded" or "from the earth", since it derives from the word humus (earth).
The word "humble" may be related to feudal England where the least valuable cuts of meat (whatever was left after the members of the upper class had taken their parts), or "umbles", were provided to the lowest class of citizens.
Religious views on humility
In a religious context, humility can mean a self-recognition of a deity and subsequent submission to that deity as a religious member. Outside of a religious context, humility is defined as being "unselved," or liberated from the consciousness of self, a form of temperance that is neither having pride (or haughtiness) nor indulging in self-deprecation.
In both religious and philosophical contexts, humility can be regarded as a virtue that prioritizes social harmony, striking a balance between two sets of qualities.
The public source identifies “Humility” as lack of pride or arrogance. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Humility, lack and pride.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1186677. The Library of Congress control number is sh85062935. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Humility” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.