Definition of "mortify"

mortify

/ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/

verb
third-person singular simple present mortifies, present participle mortifying, simple past and past participle mortified
1. (transitive) To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on.
  Quotations
  With fasting mortify'd, worn out with tears.
  1767, Walter Harte, Eulogius: Or, The Charitable Mason
  Mortify thy learned lust.
  1688, Matthew Prior, An Ode
  Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Colossians 3:5
2. (transitive, usually used passively) To embarrass, to humiliate. To injure one's dignity.
  Quotations
  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.
  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.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To kill.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize.
  Quotations
  Quicksilver is mortified with turpentine.
  1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
  He […] mortified them [pearls] in vineger aud drunke them vp
  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, […]
5. (obsolete, transitive) To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic.
  Quotations
  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.
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
6. (obsolete, transitive) To affect with vexation, chagrin, or humiliation; to humble; to depress.
  Quotations
  the news of the fatal battle of Worcester, which exceedingly mortified our expectations
  22 September 1651 (date in diary), 1818 (first published), John Evelyn, John Evelyn's Diary
  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!
  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
7. (transitive, Scotland, law, historical) To grant in mortmain.
  Quotations
  the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary
  1876 James Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, Part II, Chapter 14, p.453 (PDF 2.7 MB)
8. (intransitive) To lose vitality.
9. (intransitive) To gangrene.
10. (intransitive) To be subdued.

Definition of "mortify"

mortify

verb

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