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MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
023
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
humility
freedom from pride or arrogance; the quality or state of being humble
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
humilite
humility; humble disposition or conduct
- DATE
- Middle English, 14th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Late Latin / Indo-European
humilitās
lowness in a positive moral sense; humility opposed to pride
- DATE
- Ecclesiastical Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
035
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
openprobableexact word
What is the earliest secure English humility witness?
Merriam-Webster reports the fourteenth century broadly. The Middle English Dictionary supplies a circa-1390 Chaucer citation with humylitee, but this review did not inspect its underlying manuscript witness, and the located citation does not prove that no earlier English occurrence survives.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Was humility originally a positive moral virtue?
Not in every recorded Latin sense. Classical humilitās names physical lowness and low stature, then low rank, insignificance, meanness, or abjectness. Lewis and Short separately marks the good sense opposed to pride as ecclesiastical Latin.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did humiliation always center disgrace and shame?
No. Christian Latin and historical French include lowering, abasement, mortifying discipline, and self-humbling. Chaucer’s Middle English occurrence appears within a treatment of humility, while current American Heritage definitions center degradation, disgrace, and shame.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 4GRADE Aexact ranked word
Humility is an earth-and-lowness metaphor.
Latin humus “ground” produced humilis “low,” then humilitās “lowness,” before the moral virtue.
RANK 16GRADE Aranked reveal
Humiliation is evidenced in English before humiliate.
Chaucer’s Middle English humiliacioun occurs in a humility passage; Merriam-Webster reports the English verb humiliate only circa 1534. Christian Latin and French preserve lowering, abasement, mortification, and self-humbling before current definitions center degradation, disgrace, and shame.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.