Meek vs Lithe - What's the difference?
meek | lithe |
Humble, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
* 1848:
* "Blessed are the meek , for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5)
Submissive, dispirited.
* 1920: , Main Street [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=432765822&tag=Lewis,+Sinclair:+Main+Street,+1920&query=+meek&id=LewMain]
(obsolete) To go.
(obsolete) Mild; calm.
slim but not skinny
*
Capable of being easily bent; pliant; flexible; limber
* 1861 , , page 125
(obsolete) To become calm.
(obsolete) To make soft or mild; soften; alleviate; mitigate; lessen; smooth; palliate.
(obsolete) To give ear; attend; listen.
To listen to.
(Scotland) Shelter.
* 1932 , (Lewis Grassic Gibbon), Sunset Song :
As adjectives the difference between meek and lithe
is that meek is humble, modest, meager, or self-effacing while lithe is (obsolete) mild; calm.As verbs the difference between meek and lithe
is that meek is (us) (of horses) to while lithe is (obsolete) to go or lithe can be (obsolete) to become calm or lithe can be (obsolete) to give ear; attend; listen.As a noun lithe is
(scotland) shelter.meek
English
Adjective
(er)- Mrs. Wickam was a meek woman...who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else...
- What if they were wolves instead of lambs? They'd eat her all the sooner if she was meek to them. Fight or be eaten.
Synonyms
* See alsolithe
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) lithen, from (etyl) . See also (l), (l).Verb
Etymology 2
From (etyl) lithe, from (etyl) .Adjective
(er)- ''lithe weather
- lithe body
- She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe , polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.
- the elephant’s lithe proboscis.
- … she danced with a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with flexuous grace …
Synonyms
* lithesome, lissome,Etymology 3
From (etyl) lithen, from (etyl) .Verb
(head)Etymology 4
From (etyl) lithen, from (etyl) . More at (l).Verb
(lith)Etymology 5
Origin uncertain; perhaps an alteration of (lewth).Noun
(en noun)- So Cospatric got him the Pict folk to build a strong castle there in the lithe of the hills, with the Grampians dark and bleak behind it, and he had the Den drained and he married a Pict lady and got on her bairns and he lived there till he died.