meaning of "humbling" 1. What does "humbling" mean here? can anyone give a synonym for it? I spent hours in cytogenetics and appreciated the scientists’ painstaking approach by doing some of the same exercises – basic chromosome and pairing recognition which their ‘beginners’ do. There was something humbling about the work because it had to be ‘right’ and the eye had to be educated to its rightness. Yet there seemed so much variation even with normal chromosomes, it seemed to me the issue of an aesthetic had to be applied to the equivalent of the ‘odd sock drawer.