HUMBLING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does humbling mean? 

• HUMBLING (adjective)
  The adjective HUMBLING has 1 sense:

1. causing awareness of your shortcomings

  Familiarity information: HUMBLING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HUMBLING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing awareness of your shortcomings

Synonyms:

demeaning; humbling; humiliating; mortifying

Context example:

golf is a humbling game

Similar:

undignified (lacking dignity)

 Context examples 

Her feelings are concentrated in one—pride; and that needs humbling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, Annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the spot!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning; and therefore, to show the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could walk, in pursuit of the two young men.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)