eat humble pie

The spoken phrase a numble pie (a pie made from the entrails of a deer) was rebracketed as an umble pie, then written as (a) humble pie, after which the figurative meaning developed.

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eat humble pie (third-person singular simple present eats humble pie, present participle eating humble pie, simple past ate humble pie, past participle eaten humble pie)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To admit one's faults; to make a humiliating apology.
   • 1857–1858, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, chapter XII, in The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume I, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858, →OCLC:

     They were good-natured enough out of their cups, and ate their humble-pie with very good appetites at a reconciliation dinner which Colonel W. had with the 44th, and where he was as perfectly stupid and correct as Prince Prettyman need be. Hang him!

   • 1869–1870, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1870, →OCLC:

     Polly had a spice of girlish malice, and rather liked to see domineering Tom eat humble-pie, just enough to do him good, you know.

   • 1879, Henry James, Confidence, London: Chatto & Windus:

     Angela shook her head. “Men are dull creatures.”
     “I have already granted that, and I am eating humble pie in asking for an explanation.”

   • 1909, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, Ann Veronica, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin:

     You square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That’s my advice. If you don’t eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later.

   • 2022 March 8, Andrew Anthony, “Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama review – a defence of liberalism… from a former neocon”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     But there seems little doubt that Fukuyama has had to eat rather a lot of humble pie.

   • 2025 July 31, Jason Furman, “The Tariffs Kicked In. The Sky Didn’t Fall. Were the Economists Wrong?”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     Should the economists who sounded the alarm — the same people who got so many high-profile predictions wrong in recent years — be sitting down to eat another course of humble pie? Well, it’s not that simple.

• swallow one's pride
• eat crow
• pass under the yoke

• “humble”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “Eat humble pie”, in BBC Learning English‎^[3], BBC, 4 November 2014.