Word.ws English Dictionary

humble pie

humble pie noun: a pie made from the offal of deer or hog.

Noun

humble pie (countable and uncountable, plural humble pies)

  1. (dated) A pie made from the offal of deer or hog.
  2. (idiomatic) Humility, being humble.
    • Talking of piemen, humble-pie before proud-cake for me. This notion of being lone and lofty is a sad mistake.1857 April 1, Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, New York, N.Y.: Dix, Edwards & Co., […], →OCLC

Forms of humble pie

pluralhumble pies
alternative formhumble-pie

Origin of humble pie

The expression derives from umble pie, the original name of the offal meat pie, considered inferior food. In medieval times the pie was often served to lower-class people. Although "umbles" and the modern word "humble" are etymologically unrelated, each word has appeared both with and without the initial "h" after the Middle Ages until the 19th century.

Words formed from humble pie

Questions about humble pie

What does humble pie mean?
Humble pie means a pie made from the offal of deer or hog.
What part of speech is humble pie?
Humble pie is a noun.
What is the plural of humble pie?
The plural of humble pie is humble pies.

Words near humble pie in the dictionary

  1. humberstonite
  2. Humbert
  3. humbird
  4. humbirds
  5. humble
  6. humble pie
  7. humble pies
  8. humble plant
  9. humble plants
  10. humble-bee
  11. humble-bees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: humble pie (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-humble pie.ogg.

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