meek
MEEK · adjective
Origin
Meek comes from Middle English meek or meoc, likely borrowed from Old Norse mjúkr, meaning 'soft' or 'meek'. That traces back to Proto-Germanic *meukaz or *mūkaz, meaning 'soft, supple', and further to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'slick, slippery, to slip'.
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Journey
The word moved from describing something physically soft or pliant to describing a person's gentle, yielding temperament.
Related words
It's cognate with Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk mjuk, Norwegian Bokmål myk, and Danish myg — all meaning 'soft' or 'supple' in their own languages, showing the word's Scandinavian roots stayed close to its original sense of pliancy.