Humble Pie: What is it?

The etymology of  the phrase“to eat humble pie” is very interesting. The phrase comes from either the 14th Century “numble pie” or the 15th Century “umble pie”. These were pies that were eaten by the poorer classes, and contained various miscellaneous animal parts like intestines. "Umble" itself comes from the French word "nombles", referring to deer innards.

The word ‘humble’ is in fact of Latin origin and has a different etymology to ‘umble’ – it is pure coincidence that the two words sound similar.

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Umble pie is recorded in the diary of Samuel Pepys wrote about, who declared on 8th July 1663 that: “Mrs Turner came in and did bring us an umble-pie hot out of her oven, extraordinarily good.”

For more pie etymology and fun pie facts, see our ultimate guide to pies!