Meek means quiet, gentle and unwilling to argue. A meek voice, meek and mild, too meek.
It is not quite a compliment in modern use: meek suggests submission where gentle suggests kindness, and meek and mild is often faintly mocking. The Beatitudes promise the earth to the meek, and the Greek word behind that translation is closer to disciplined strength than to timidity — which is one of the better-known translation arguments in English. Note meekly, meekness.
1adjectivemeekQuiet, gentle and unwilling to argue.
“She seemed meek at first, but in the end she stood up to the bullies.”
synonyms: submissive, docile
meek is a quality of submissiveness.
Middle English meek came from Old Norse mjukr, soft or supple. The root is about pliability rather than fear, which is nearer the biblical sense than the modern one.
Proto-Indo-European
*mewg-
Proto-Germanic
*meukaz
Old Norse
mjúkr — soft; meek
Middle English
meek
English, today
meek
Built from
From Middle English meek, meke, meoc, probably a borrowing from Old Norse mjúkr (“soft; meek”), from Proto-Germanic meukaz, mūkaz (“soft; supple”), from Proto-Indo-European mewg-, mewk- (“slick, slippery; to slip”); compare Old English smēag (“subtle, stealthy, etc.”) and smūgan. Cognate with Swedish - and Norwegian Nynorsk mjuk (“soft”), Norwegian Bokmål myk (“soft”), and Danish myg (“supple”), Dutch muik (“soft, overripe”), dialectal German mauch (“dry and decayed, rotten”), Mauche (“malanders”). Compare as well Welsh mwyth (“soft, weak”), Latin ēmungō (“to blow one's nose”), xto muk- (“to let go, give up”), Lithuanian mùkti (“to slip away from”), Ancient Greek μύσσομαι (“to blow the nose”), Sanskrit मु॒ञ्चति॑ (“to release, let loose”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire