meek

Meanings

Adjective

• Humble, non-boastful, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
• Submissive, dispirited.

Verb

• To tame; to break.

Origin

• From Middle English meek, meke, meoc, a borrowing from Old Norse mjúkr, from Proto-Germanic *meukaz, *mūkaz, from Proto-Indo-European *mewg-, *mewk-.
• Cognate with Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk mjuk, Norwegian Bokmål myk, and Danish myg, Dutch muik, dialectal German mauch, Mauche. Compare also Old English smūgan, Welsh mwyth, Latin ēmungō, Tocharian A muk-, Lithuanian mùkti, Old Church Slavonic мъчати, Ancient Greek μύσσομαι, Sanskrit मुञ्चति.