What Does It Mean To Be Meek?

As I reviewed Elder Bednar's talk "Meek and Lowly of Heart," a certain phrase taken from Moroni 7:41 "for none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart." That makes these two character traits, meekness and lowliness of heart, essential to our spiritual progress. "Lowliness of heart" could be taken to mean "Humility," which makes a lot of sense. If Pride is "The universal sin, the great vice," and "the antidote for pride is humility," as President Ezra Taft Benson has taught, then of course, humility is an essential characteristic. But what of meekness? What does it mean to be meek?

Dictionary.com defines meek this way:

1. humbly patient or docile, as under provocation from others.
2. overly submissive or compliant; spiritless; tame.
3. Obsolete. gentle; kind.

I would argue that the word "overly" in the second definition is optional, that the word "spiritless" could be the absolute opposite of true, and that the last definition is not as "Obsolete" as Dictionary.com says it is, but I digress.

It occurs to me that meekness is probably just and element of humility. In fact, when President Benson said that "the antidote for pride is humility," he went on to describe humility as "meekness, submissiveness." Humility, meekness, and submissiveness all overlap each other to some degrees. "Meek" may have some specific usages, but in many cases, it may be interchangeable will "Humble," or "Patient."

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs. Perhaps both "Meek" and "Lowly of Heart" were meant to refer to humility, and not just the last phrase, as I had guessed. In any case, we know that it is essential to be meek and humble, and we probably all know what those terms mean well enough to apply them in our lives. I may not be able to define meekness in a way that differentiates it from humility, but I know what it means to be meek.