meek

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meek

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From Middle English meek, meke, meoc, unknown origin, likely related to Old English smēag (“subtle, stealthy, etc.”) and smūgan and possibly 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 as well 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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /miːk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /mik/
• Rhymes: -iːk

meek (comparative meeker, superlative meekest)

1. Humble, non-boastful, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:5:

     Blessed are the meeke: for they shall inherit the earth.

   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “Chapter 8”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     Mrs. Wickam was a meek woman...who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else...

2. Submissive, dispirited, cowed.
   • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC:

     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.

     read here

• See also Thesaurus:humble

• meekly
• meekness

meek (third-person singular simple present meeks, present participle meeking, simple past and past participle meeked)

1. (US) (of horses) To tame; to break.