Definition of "martyr"

martyr

/ˈmɐːtə(ɹ)/

noun
plural martyrs
1. One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom.
2. (by extension) One who sacrifices their life, station, or something of great personal value, for the sake of principle or to sustain a cause.
3. (with a prepositional phrase of cause) One who suffers greatly and/or constantly, even involuntarily.
  Quotations
  He'd been a martyr to asthma all his life.
  1937, AJ Cronin, The Citadel
verb
third-person singular simple present martyrs, present participle martyring, simple past and past participle martyred
1. (transitive) To make someone into a martyr by putting them to death for adhering to, or acting in accordance with, some belief, especially religious; to sacrifice on account of faith or profession.
2. (transitive) To persecute.
3. (transitive) To torment; to torture.
  Quotations
  Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr you.This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,Whiles that Lavinia ’tween her stumps doth holdThe basin that receives your guilty blood.
  c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii]
  […] The louely Amoret, whoſe gentle hartThou martyreſt with ſorow and with ſmart, […]
  1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, stanza 2, page 94

Definition of "martyr"

martyr

noun

Quotations

verb

Quotations