mortify
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mortify
- /ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/ UK
- /ˈmoɹtɪfaɪ/ US
Where it comes from
From Anglo-Norman mortifier, Middle French mortifier, from Late Latin mortificō (“cause death”), from Latin mors (“death”) + -ficō (“-fy”).
verb mortifies · mortifying · mortified
- To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on. Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.
- To injure the dignity of; to embarrass; to humiliate. 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.
- To kill. The second Spring after transplanting, purge them of all superfluous shoots and scions, reserving only the most towardly for the future stem; this to be done yearly, as long as they continue in the nursery; and if of the principal stem so left, the frost mortifie any part, cut it off [...]
- To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize. Soothly, the gode werkes, that he dide biforn that he fil in sinne, been al mortified and astoned and dulled by the ofte sinning.
- To affect with vexation or chagrin. He seemed to enjoy mortifying them with news of every fresh hell loosed in the capital.
- To scare. Near-synonym: petrify
- To humble; to depress.
- To grant in mortmain. the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary
- To lose vitality. [...] Tis a pure ill-natur'd ſatisfaction to ſee one that was a beauty unfortunately move with the ſame languor, and ſoftneſs of behaviour, that once was charming in her—To ſee, I ſay, her mortify that us'd to kill [...]
- To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic. 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.
- To gangrene. For the inducing of putrefaction, it were good to try it with flesh or fish exposed to the moonbeams; and again exposed to the air when the moon shineth not, for the like time: to see whether will corrupt sooner: and try it also with capon, or some other fowl, laid abroad, to see whether it will mor
- To be subdued. Trying to be kind and honest will require all his thoughts; a mortified appetite is never a wise companion; in so far as he has had to mortify an appetite, he will still be the worse man; and of such an one a great deal of cheerfulness will be required in judging life, and a great deal of humility i
