different between placid vs meek

English

Etymology

From French placide, from Latin placidus (“peaceful, calm, placid”), from place? (“please, satisfy”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?plæs.?d/
• Rhymes: -æs?d

Adjective

placid (comparative placider, superlative placidest)

1. calm and quiet; peaceful; tranquil

   a placid disposition

   a placid lake

   • 1941, Ogden Nash, "The Ant", in The Face is Familiar, Garden City Publishing Company, page 224.

     The ant has made himself illustrious / Through constant industry industrious. / So what? / Would you be calm and placid / If you were full of formic acid?

Derived terms

• placidness
• placidity

Translations

Romanian

Etymology

From French placide

Adjective

placid m or n (feminine singular placid?, masculine plural placizi, feminine and neuter plural placide)

1. placid

Declension

Related terms

• placiditate

English

Etymology

From Middle English meek, meke, meoc, a borrowing from Old Norse mjúkr (“soft; meek”), from Proto-Germanic *meukaz, *m?kaz (“soft; supple”), from Proto-Indo-European *mewg-, *mewk- (“slick, slippery; to slip”).

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 also Old English sm?gan (“to slide, slip”), Welsh mwyth (“soft, weak”), Latin ?mung? (“to blow one's nose”), Tocharian A muk- (“to let go, give up”), Lithuanian mùkti (“to slip away from”), Old Church Slavonic ?????? (m??ati, “to chase”), Ancient Greek ???????? (mússomai, “to blow the nose”), Sanskrit ??????? (muñcati, “to release, let loose”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mi?k/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mik/
• Rhymes: -i?k

Adjective

meek (comparative meeker, superlative meekest)

1. Humble, non-boastful, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
   • 1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son:

     Mrs. Wickam was a meek woman...who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else...

2. Submissive, dispirited.
   • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street:

     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 also Thesaurus:humble

Derived terms

• meekly
• meekness

Translations

Verb

meek (third-person singular simple present meeks, present participle meeking, simple past and past participle meeked)

1. (US) (of horses) To tame; to break.

Translations