Word.ws English Dictionary

humblebee

humblebee noun: a bumblebee.

Noun

humblebee (plural humblebees)

  1. (archaic) A bumblebee.
    • The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
      Were ſtill at oddes being but three.c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby...
    • 1800's, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Humblebee
      Burly, dozing humblebee,
      Where thou art is clime for me.

Forms of humblebee

pluralhumblebees
alternative formhumble-bee

Origin of humblebee

From Middle English humbul-be, humbulbe, hombul-be, from *humbul (“bumblebee”) + be (“bee”). See also West Frisian hommel (“bumblebee”), Dutch hommel (“bumblebee”), German Low German Hummel (“bumblebee”), German Hummel (“bumblebee”), Swedish humla (“bumblebee”), Norwegian humle (“bumblebee”); also cognate with Dutch hommelbij (“bumblebee”), Danish humlebi (“bumblebee”). Compare also English humble (“to hum”).

Questions about humblebee

What does humblebee mean?
Humblebee means a bumblebee.
What part of speech is humblebee?
Humblebee is a noun.
What is the plural of humblebee?
The plural of humblebee is humblebees.

Words near humblebee in the dictionary

  1. humble-bee
  2. humble-bees
  3. humble-hearted
  4. humble-heartedness
  5. humble-pie
  6. humblebee
  7. humblebees
  8. humblebird
  9. humblebirds
  10. humblebrag
  11. humblebragged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: humblebee (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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Cite this entry: “humblebee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/humblebee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.