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''mortify'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260714000159-00-⌔

mortify - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

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

  • (transitive) To discipline (one’s body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on. [from 15th c.]
    • ✤ Synonym: macerate
    • ✤ Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.
    • ✤ With fasting mortify’d, worn out with tears.1
    • ✤ * Mortify thy learned lust.*2
    • ✤ * Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.*3
  • (transitive, usually used passively) To injure the dignity of; to embarrass; to humiliate. [from 17th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: demean, humiliate, shame
    • ✤ Antonyms: dignify, honor
    • ✤ 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.
    • ✤ 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.4
  • (obsolete, transitive) To kill. [14th–17th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: dispose of, terminate; see also Thesaurus: 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 […]5
  • (obsolete, transitive) To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize. [14th–18th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: abate, cancel out, diminish, weaken
    • ✤ Soothly, the gode werkes, that he dide biforn that he fil in sinne, been al mortified and astoned and dulled by the ofte sinning.6
    • ✤ Quicksilver is mortified with turpentine.7
    • ✤ He […] mortified them[pearls] in vineger aud drunke them vp8
  • (transitive) To affect with vexation or chagrin.
    • ✤ Synonyms: disturb, perturb; see also Thesaurus: upset
    • ✤ He seemed to enjoy mortifying them with news of every fresh hell loosed in the capital.
    • ✤ the news of the fatal battle of Worcester, which exceedingly mortified our expectations9
    • ✤ 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!10
  • (transitive) To scare.
    • ✤ Synonyms: frighten; see also Thesaurus: frighten
    • ✤ Near-synonym: petrify
    • ✤ Please don’t mortify your mother by telling her what a stupidly dangerous thing you did last night.
  • (obsolete, transitive) To humble; to depress.
  • (transitive, Scots law, historical) To grant in mortmain.
    • ✤ the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary11
  • (intransitive) To lose vitality.
    • ✤ Synonyms: darken, die, fade, wither
    • ✤ […] 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 […]12
  • (archaic, transitive) To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic. [15th–18th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: fester, necrotize, rankle, rot, sphacelate, decay
    • ✤ 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.13
  • (archaic, intransitive) To gangrene.
    • ✤ Synonyms: fester, putrefy
    • ✤ 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 mortify and become tender sooner; try it also with dead flies, or dead worms, having a little water cast upon them, to see whether will putrefy sooner.14
  • (intransitive) To be subdued.
    • ✤ Synonyms: abate, diminish, quell, subside, wane
    • ✤ 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 in judging others.15

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈmoɹtɪfaɪ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-14.

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Footnotes

  1. 1767, Walter Harte, Eulogius: Or, The Charitable Mason: ↩

  2. 1688, Matthew Prior, An Ode: ↩

  3. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Colossians 3:5: ↩

  4. 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: ↩

  5. 1664, John Evelyn, “Of the Mulberry”, in Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber; republished as Sylva: Or A Discourse of Forest Trees, volume 1, London: Arthur Doubleday, 1908, page 205: ↩

  6. c. 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Persones Tale; republished as The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900, page 580: ↩

  7. 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis[Bacon], “”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p] rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC: ↩

  8. 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: ↩

  9. 22 September 1651 (date in diary), 1818 (first published), John Evelyn, John Evelyn’s Diary ↩

  10. 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: ↩

  11. 1876 James Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, Part II, Chapter 14, p.453 (PDF 2.7 MB): ↩

  12. 1768, Richard Steele, “Act III. Scene I.”, in The Funeral: or, Grief à-la-Mode. A Comedy, Edinburgh: Martin & Wotherspoon, page 47: ↩

  13. 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC: ↩

  14. 1627, Francis Bacon, “Century IX”, in Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History; republished as The works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, volume 2, Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1852, page 123: ↩

  15. 1900, Robert Louis Stevenson, A Christmas Sermon ‎: ↩

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