humblebee

• humble-bee

From Middle English humbul-be, humbulbe, hombul-be, from *humbul (“bumblebee”) + be (“bee”).

See also West Frisian hommel (“bumblebee”), Dutch hommel (“bumblebee”), German Low German Hummel (“bumblebee”), German Hummel (“bumblebee”), Swedish humla (“bumblebee”), Norwegian humle (“bumblebee”); also cognate with Dutch hommelbij (“bumblebee”), Danish humlebi (“bumblebee”). Compare also English humble (“to hum”).

humblebee (plural humblebees)

1. (obsolete) A bumblebee.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], signature [C4], verso, lines 85–86:

     The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
     Were ſtill at oddes being but three.

   • 1800's, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Humblebee

     Burly, dozing humblebee,

     Where thou art is clime for me.

   • 1859 November 24, Charles Darwin, “Struggle for Existence”, in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, pages 73–74:

     Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear.

• humble (“to hum”) (obsolete)