mortify

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman mortifier, Middle French mortifier, from Late Latin mortificō (“cause death”), from Latin mors (“death”) + -ficō (“-fy”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmoɹtɪfaɪ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Verb

mortify (third-person singular simple present mortifies, present participle mortifying, simple past and past participle mortified)

1. (transitive) To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on.

   Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.

   • 1767, Walter Harte, Eulogius: Or, The Charitable Mason:

     With fasting mortify'd, worn out with tears.

   • 1688, Matthew Prior, An Ode:

     Mortify thy learned lust.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Colossians 3:5:

     Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.

2. (transitive, usually used passively) To embarrass, to humiliate. To injure one's dignity.

   I was so mortified I could have died right there; instead I fainted, but I swore I'd never let that happen to me again.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.

3. (obsolete, transitive) To kill.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize.
   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. , 3rd edition, London: William Rawley; rinted by J H for William Lee , →OCLC:

     Quicksilver is mortified with turpentine.

   • 1627, G[eorge] H[akewill], An Apologie of the Power and Prouidence of God in the Gouernment of the World. , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Iohn Lichfield and William Turner, , →OCLC:

     He […] mortified them [pearls] in vineger aud drunke them vp

5. (obsolete, transitive) To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book II, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:

     Servius the Grammarian being troubled with the gowt, found no better meanes to be rid of it, than to apply poison to mortifie [translating tuer] his legs.

6. (obsolete, transitive) To affect with vexation, chagrin, or humiliation; to humble; to depress.
   • 22 September 1651 (date in diary), 1818 (first published), John Evelyn, John Evelyn's Diary

     the news of the fatal battle of Worcester, which exceedingly mortified our expectations

   • 1712 January 4 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, December 24, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 257; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     How often is [the ambitious man] mortified with the very praises he receives, if they do not rise so high as he thinks they ought!

     The spelling has been modernized.

7. (transitive, Scots law, historical) To grant in mortmain.
   • 1876 James Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, Part II, Chapter 14, p.453 (PDF 2.7 MB):

     the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary

8. (intransitive) To lose vitality.
9. (intransitive) To gangrene.
10. (intransitive) To be subdued.

Synonyms

• (to discipline oneself by suppressing desires): macerate
• (to injure one's dignity): demean, humiliate, shame

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “to injure one's dignity”): dignify, honor

Related terms

• mortification

Translations