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''mortar'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''mortar'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250825004443-00-⌔

mortar - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

mortar (countable and uncountable, plural mortars)

  • (uncountable) A mixture of lime or cement, sand and water used for bonding building blocks.
    • ✤ The holy hearth! If any earthly and material thing, or rather a divine idea embodied in brick and mortar, might be supposed to possess the permanence of moral truth, it was this.1
  • (countable) A hollow vessel used to pound, crush, rub, grind or mix ingredients with a pestle.
    • ✤ Synonyms: mortar and pestle, pestle and mortar
  • (countable, military, historical) A short, heavy, large-bore cannon designed for indirect fire at very steep trajectories.
  • (countable, military) A relatively lightweight, often portable indirect fire weapon which transmits recoil to a base plate and is designed to lob explosive shells at very steep trajectories. [from 20th c.]
  • (countable) In paper milling, a trough in which material is hammered.

Verb

mortar (third-person singular simple present mortars, present participle mortaring, simple past and past participle mortared)

  • (transitive) To use mortar or plaster to join two things together.
  • (transitive) To pound in a mortar.
  • To fire a mortar (weapon).
  • To attack (someone or something) using a mortar (weapon).
    • ✤ The insurgents snuck up close and mortared the base last night.

Etymology

From Middle English morter, from Old French mortier, from Latin mortārium. Doublet of mortarium.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈmɔːtə(ɹ)/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)tə(ɹ)

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Fire Worship”, in Mosses from an Old Manse: ↩

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Secondary

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