docile

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   willing to be taught or led or supervised or directed

   the docile masses of an enslaved nation

2. 2
   adj

   easily handled or managed

   a gentle old horse, docile and obedient

3. 3
   adj

   ready and willing to be taught

   docile pupils eager for instruction

4. 4
   adj

   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.

5. 5
   adj

   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.

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").