docile

adj

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *deḱ-der. Proto-Italic *dokeō Latin doceō Proto-Indo-European *-elis Proto-Italic *-elis Latin -ilis Latin docilisder. Middle French docilebor. Middle English docyle English docile From Middle English docyle, from Middle French docile, from Latin docilis, from docēre (“teach”). Compare Spanish dócil ("docile").

1. Ready to accept instruction or direction; obedient; subservient.

   “With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining clasped in one another’s arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence. He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and where he had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into the hall.”

   “Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by any one she looked up to.”

2. Yielding to control or supervision, direction, or management.

   “Such literature may well be anathema to those, who are too docile and petty for their own good.”