mortification
English
Etymology
From Middle French mortification, from Old French, from Latin mortificatio.
Pronunciation
Audio (US) (file)
- Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Noun
mortification (countable and uncountable, plural mortifications)
- The act of mortifying.
- A sensation of extreme shame or embarrassment.
- 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, V.ii:
- Certainly a little mortification appears very becoming in a wife—don't you think it will do her good to let her Pine a little.
- 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 21345056, page 152:
- He felt stunned—mortification, sorrow, and anger, mingled together: the past was like a dream, and the future swam indistinctly before him.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:
- The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the mortification of having been jilted by him remained.
- 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, V.ii:
- (medicine) The death of part of the body.
- 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 5”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], OCLC 855945:
- And then there's the fever and the mortification—if it took bad ways he'd quickly be gone.
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- A bringing under of the passions and appetites by a severe or strict manner of living.
- (law, Scotland) A bequest to a charitable institution.
Synonyms
- (a sensation of extreme shame): shame, humiliation
Antonyms
- (a sensation of extreme shame): honor, exaltation
Translations
act of mortifying
|
a sensation of extreme shame
|
death of a body part
|
French
Noun
mortification f (plural mortifications)
- mortification
Further reading
- “mortification”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.