一日一成语【7】eat humble pie

eat humble pie

pie即“批”，一种带馅的点心，你一定吃过了apple-pie(苹果批)、lemon-pie(柠檬批)，meat-pie(肉批)。那么humble pie是用什么做馅的呢？humble是个形容词，解释是“卑谦的”，但实际上，这个成语中的humble一词是umbles这个词的讹化。umbles指鹿的内脏，以前人爱吃鹿肉，鹿肉供主人食用，鹿的心、肝之类杂碎便做成馅饼供仆人食用，因此eat humble pie便是“低三下四、忍气吞声”的意思：

He did not have a happy childhood because his mother died in childbirth and his father remarried, and living with his stepmother and her own children, he had to eat humble pie.
他的童年并不幸福，他的母亲在生孩子时死了，父亲再娶，他和继母和她自己的子女一起生活，不得不忍气吞声。

He thought of quitting the team because he felt being slighted by the coach because of his comparably small build and somehow had to eat humble pie.
他因为身材矮小而受到教练的冷落，总是低人一等，因而他想离开这支球队。