Hu-mĭl'i-ty, n.

n. [Lat. humilitas, Fr. humilité, Pr. humilitat, Sp. humildad, It. umilità. See HUMBLE.] 1. The state or quality of being humble; freedom from pride and arrogance; lowliness of mind; a modest estimate of one's own worth; a sense of one's own unworthiness through imperfection and sinfulness. Before honor is humility. Prov. xv. 33. Serving the Lord with all humility of mind. Acts xx. 19. 2. Act of submission. With these humilities they satisfied the young king. Davies. Syn.—Lowliness; humbleness; modesty; diffidence. —HUMILITY, MODESTY, DIFFIDENCE. Diffidence is a distrust of our powers, combined with a fear lest our failure should be censured, since a dread of failure unconnected with a dread of censure is not usually called diffidence. It may be carried too far, and is not always, like modesty and humility, a virtue. Modesty, without supposing self-distrust, implies an unwillingness to put ourselves forward, and an absence of all over-confidence in our own powers. Humility consists in rating our claims low, in being willing to waive our rights, and take a lower place than might be our due. It does not require of us to underrate ourselves. The humility of our Savior was perfect, and yet he had a true sense of his own greatness. Be silent, always, when you doubt your sense; And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. Pope. Modesty is a kind of shame or bashfulness proceeding from the sense a man has of his own defects compared with the perfections of him whom he comes before. South. Humility is like a tree, whose root, when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer, and stands surer and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron. Bp. Taylor.