humbling

Pluralhumblings

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing a feeling of inferiority, especially when faced with something of higher rank, status, quality, or strength.

   Losing to a far younger opponent proved a humbling lesson for the veteran.

   It was humbling to realize how much the older craftsmen still had to teach her.

   Similarsobering, humiliating, mortifying

   Oppositeflattering

   Note

   Easily confused with humble itself, and worth keeping apart: a humble person is modest, while a humbling thing is what makes someone feel small, such as a stronger opponent or a more skilled craftsman. The adjective is fully gradable (more humbling, most humbling) and sits comfortably after it is, as in it was humbling to see their skill. The quality lives in the thing faced, not in the person feeling it.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of humble.

   The coach kept humbling his players with brutally honest feedback.

   By admitting her mistake aloud, she was humbling herself before the whole team.

   Note

   A participle doing double duty: progressive in she was humbling herself, and a gerund naming the act itself in the humbling of a champion. The verb behind it is often reflexive, so humbling oneself, choosing to lower one's own pride, is a natural construction. Once countable, with the plural humblings, the gerund becomes the noun for a set-down. The same spelling also served an obsolete verb meaning simply "to hum."

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An event that produces humbleness; a sharp rebuke or blow to someone's pride.

   The unexpected defeat was a humbling the proud team would not soon forget.

   His public correction by a junior colleague amounted to a quiet humbling.

   Similarhumiliation, comedown, rebuke

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