What's the difference between abject and humble?

Abject


Definition:

  • (a.) Cast down; low-lying.
  • (a.) Sunk to a law condition; down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts.
  • (a.) To cast off or down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase.
  • (n.) A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He is an expert on the public health problems that plague El Paso and the other cities along the international border, all of which are exacerbated by abject poverty and a burgeoning population.
  • (2) During his long stint in the witness stand, Harris was questioned at length about why he expressed abject remorse to the father for his actions, offering a little more credible explanation than he felt ending the relationship had upset the woman.
  • (3) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (4) An Israeli commentator said of the first of them: "when one looks through all the lofty phraseology, all the deliberate disinformation, the hundreds of pettifogging sections, sub-sections, appendices and protocols, one clearly recognises that the Israeli victory was absolute and Palestine defeat abject."
  • (5) It is an abject failure to take the rights of females seriously.
  • (6) Obviously Pantilimon is more abject than Hart,” says Graham Lees “and Demichelis must have lied on his CV but why does no one bemoan the wretchedness, sorry, opportunity gifted to Sunderland, of Nasri’s selection?
  • (7) Indeed, we have been reminded recently of the abject poverty that many have fallen into, needing to use food banks or choose between "eating and heating" and the need for charitable institutions to step forward and help the needy.
  • (8) Now, millions of working people who would otherwise be languishing in abject poverty depend on these tax credits.
  • (9) It was an abject defeat for a leader whose response to the migration crisis deserved better.
  • (10) Meanwhile the victims are sitting there in abject poverty and have not received any compensation."
  • (11) The aim was to secure a politically and militarily allied government in a strategically important country, a mission which David Cameron amusingly declared this week to have been "accomplished" despite the western alliance's abject failure over 12 years to defeat that Taliban's rag-tag army and the refusal of the corrupt Hamid Karzai administration to play ball over the country's long-term future .
  • (12) But it bears testament, too, to the Brown government's abject failure to give a comprehensible account of itself that the opposition should find such easy pickings.
  • (13) It's all there: sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, the oscillation between feeling abject and worthless and wanting to take over the world, the fantasies of power and revenge.
  • (14) "Outright hostility, abject surrender - that's what you have seen in the past.
  • (15) The picture you have painted is one of abject squalor made worse by a generally lazy approach to hygiene.
  • (16) Smith could not have been more abjectly humiliated.
  • (17) Given the abject failure of much of the western media to scrutinise its actions – at least until it's too late – it may believe it can get away with it.
  • (18) He ended up with five during the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign but all came in the fixtures against an abject Gibraltar, featuring a hat-trick in the home game scored, memorably, from a combined total of eight yards.
  • (19) Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: “The abject failure by Southern rail in yesterday’s talks to take the safety issues seriously has left us with no option but to confirm further action.
  • (20) Recent weeks have seen a succession of good news stories from Iraq, including the ceremonial reopening of the national museum, whose looting in 2003 symbolised the abject failure to plan for the post-war period.

Humble


Definition:

  • (superl.) Near the ground; not high or lofty; not pretentious or magnificent; unpretending; unassuming; as, a humble cottage.
  • (superl.) Thinking lowly of one's self; claiming little for one's self; not proud, arrogant, or assuming; thinking one's self ill-deserving or unworthy, when judged by the demands of God; lowly; waek; modest.
  • (a.) Hornless. See Hummel.
  • (v. t.) To bring low; to reduce the power, independence, or exaltation of; to lower; to abase; to humilate.
  • (v. t.) To make humble or lowly in mind; to abase the pride or arrogance of; to reduce the self-sufficiently of; to make meek and submissive; -- often used rexlexively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You get like three days where you have to show up?” But the younger rival managed to turn difficult questions into an opportunity to boast of his humble background and promise of change.
  • (2) Chelsea, racism and the Premier League’s role | Letters Read more Mighty Manchester United had just been humbled by lowly Leicester City, battered 5-3.
  • (3) The classic Jedi response to subservience can be seen in the contrast between Luke’s first meeting with C-3PO – “I see, Sir”; “You can call me Luke”; “I see, Sir Luke,”; “No, just Luke” – and Qui-Gon Jinn meeting Jar Jar Binks: “Mesa your humble servant”; “That won’t be necessary”.
  • (4) In line with his modest and humble public image, Francis exhibits a strong taste for Italian neorealist cinema, which eschewed Hollywood razzle-dazzle and told morally powerful stories set among the working class.
  • (5) As it has elevated "hygge" (cosiness) into a way of life, Copenhagen has elevated the humble bicycle into a cultural icon, a pillar of its image.
  • (6) Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Francis said Jesus "awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don't matter in the eyes of the world".
  • (7) Celebrity and success came to him in the George Clooney tradition: when he was older and wiser and better at handling it, when a decade of scraping by in Hollywood, in every sense, had made him humble and more human.
  • (8) Beginning as a humble meat processor in 1955, Farmfoods opened its first experimental shop in Aberdeen in the early 1970s.
  • (9) And you have humbled me with your commitment to our country.
  • (10) Three precious points appeared to be theirs and they stood not only to crown a fightback that had hardly been trailed, but to soothe the pain of the 6-0 humbling at Chelsea from last Saturday.
  • (11) ?” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson ‘humbled’ to be appointed foreign secretary – video There was also bewilderment at Johnson’s appointment in Beijing’s diplomatic circles.
  • (12) Qatar’s royal family may have snapped up Canary Wharf for £2.6bn this week, adding to its London portfolio of Harrods and the Shard skyscraper, but the Gulf billionaires’ property spree has finally run into a dead end – a humble town hall bureaucrat.
  • (13) We honour Otis and his complete and humbling fascination with all things outdoors, big and small, near and far.
  • (14) Koroma said he was “humbled by the dedication” of 35,000 Ebola response workers “whose heroism is without parallel in the history of our country”.
  • (15) From humble roots in Philadelphia, he has more than once gained, lost and regained sway in LA showbusiness.
  • (16) Thus humbled, consider Goethe's admonition as a call to further scrutiny and investigation, "Theory and experience are opposed to each other in constant conflict.
  • (17) Tony Selznick , taught Bowie to roller-skate for the Day-In Day-Out video David came across as very humble and in between careers, almost.
  • (18) But Malala, who has interviewed her and followed her on the campaign trail, found Madikizela-Mandela less than humble.
  • (19) Siti’s mother, Benah, said the Indonesian attacker came from a humble village background.
  • (20) In return for the biggest bailout in global financial history – rescue funds from the EU and IMF amounting to €240bn (£188bn) – it was hoped that old mentalities would change and a nation humbled by near-bankruptcy would finally dump its culture of deceit.