eat humble pie

The spoken phrase a numble pie (a pie made from the entrails of a deer) was rebracketed as an umble pie, then written as (a) humble pie, after which the figurative meaning developed.

• "They were good-natured enough out of their cups, and ate their humble-pie with very good appetites at a reconciliation dinner which Colonel W. had with the 44th, and where he was as perfectly stupid and correct as Prince Prettyman need be. Hang him!"
• "Polly had a spice of girlish malice, and rather liked to see domineering Tom eat humble-pie, just enough to do him good, you know."
• "Angela shook her head. “Men are dull creatures.” “I have already granted that, and I am eating humble pie in asking for an explanation.”"
• "You square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That’s my advice. If you don’t eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later."
• "But there seems little doubt that Fukuyama has had to eat rather a lot of humble pie."
• "Should the economists who sounded the alarm — the same people who got so many high-profile predictions wrong in recent years — be sitting down to eat another course of humble pie? Well, it’s not that simple."

• swallow one's pride
• eat crow
• pass under the yoke