Word.ws English Dictionary

eat humble pie

eat humble pie verb: to admit one's faults; to make a humiliating apology.

Verb

eat humble pie (third-person singular simple present eats humble pie, present participle eating humble pie, simple past ate humble pie, past participle eaten humble pie)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To admit one's faults; to make a humiliating apology.
    • They were good-natured enough out of their cups, and ate their humble-pie with very good appetites at a reconciliation dinner which Colonel W. had with the 44th, and where he was as perfectly stupid and correct as Prince Prettyman need be. Hang him!1857–1858, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, chapter XII, in The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume I, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858, →OCLC
    • Polly had a spice of girlish malice, and rather liked to see domineering Tom eat humble-pie, just enough to do him good, you know.1869–1870, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1870, →OCLC

eat humble pie meaning in Tamil and Kannada

eat humble pie in Tamil

தவறை ஒத்துக்கொள், வெட்கி மன்னிப்புக் கேள்

eat humble pie in Kannada

ದೈನ್ಯದಿಂದ ಕ್ಷಮೆ ಬೇಡು, ಅಪಮಾನ ಸಹಿಸಿಕೊ, ನುಂಗಿಕೊ

Forms of eat humble pie

third-person singular presenteats humble pie
present participleeating humble pie
pastate humble pie
past participleeaten humble pie

Origin of eat humble pie

The spoken phrase a numble pie (a pie made from the entrails of a deer) was rebracketed as an umble pie, then written as (a) humble pie, after which the figurative meaning developed.

Questions about eat humble pie

What does eat humble pie mean?
Eat humble pie means to admit one's faults; to make a humiliating apology.
What is eat humble pie in Tamil?
Eat humble pie in Tamil is தவறை ஒத்துக்கொள், வெட்கி மன்னிப்புக் கேள். See Eat humble pie meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is eat humble pie?
Eat humble pie is a verb.
What is the past tense of eat humble pie?
The past tense of eat humble pie is ate humble pie.

Words near eat humble pie in the dictionary

  1. eat dirt
  2. eat down
  3. eat for two
  4. eat from someone's hand
  5. eat from the palm of someone's hand
  6. eat humble pie
  7. eat in
  8. eat into
  9. eat it
  10. eat lead
  11. eat like a bird

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat humble pie (page history and authors); eat humble pie (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); eat humble pie (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-eat humble pie.ogg.

Cite this entry: “eat humble pie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eat_humble_pie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.