Other forms: humiliated, humiliating, humiliates
To humiliate somebody is to make them lose their dignity in front of other people. Not just beating them — making sure everybody watches.
The audience is what separates humiliation from mere defeat, and that is why the word carries such weight. It is used of sport, of arguments and of cruelty in schools and workplaces. The passive is common, as in he was humiliated in front of the whole team. The noun humiliation names both the act and the feeling, and humiliating describes the experience.
1verbhumiliateTo make someone feel ashamed and foolish in front of others.
“He humiliated her in front of the entire office.”
To humiliate is to put somebody on the ground. Latin humilis, lowly, is built straight on humus, the soil, so the insult is literally about being brought down to earth.
Latin
humiliātus
English, today
humiliate
Built from
Latin humiliātus, perfect passive participle of humiliō (“to abase, humble”) (see -ate), from Latin humilis (“lowly, humble”), from humus (“ground; earth, soil”); see humble.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA