| 释义 |
humble pie
†1. = umble pie, a pie made of the ‘umbles’ or inwards of a deer (or other animal). Obs.
a1648Digby Closet Open. (1677) 203 To season Humble-Pyes. [1822T. L. Peacock Maid Marian 241 Robin helped him largely to numble-pie..and the other dainties of his table.]
2. to eat humble pie: to be very submissive; to apologize humbly; to submit to humiliation.[From humble a., perh. with jocular reference to sense 1 here. Cf. to eat rue-pie (Lincolnsh.) to rue, repent.] 1830Forby's Voc. E. Anglia App. 432 ‘To make one eat humble pie’—i.e. To make him lower his tone, and be submissive. It may possibly be derived from the umbles of the deer, which were the perquisite of the huntsman; and if so, it should be written umble-pie, the food of inferiors. 1847–78Halliwell s.v., To eat humble pie, to be very submissive, var. dial. 1855Thackeray Newcomes I. xiv. 136 You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my boy. 1863Reade Hard Cash xlii, ‘The scornful Dog’, had to eat wormwood pudding and humble pie. 1871J. C. Jeaffreson Ann. Oxford I. xiv. 224 The town had..to eat a considerable amount of humble pie. 1883Howells Register ii, Trying to think what was the very humblest pie I could eat.
b. In other analogous expressions.
1862Sala Seven Sons II. ix. 217 The staple in the bill of fare was Humble Pie. 1895Times 9 Jan. 4/1 To sue for peace when further resistance becomes hopeless is a kind of ‘humble pie’ that fate has condemned all vanquished nations to swallow from time immemorial. |