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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mortify.

To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/UK/ˈmoɹtɪfaɪ/General-American
  1. To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on.

    transitive
    Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.
  2. To injure the dignity of; to embarrass; to humiliate.

    transitive · usually
    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.
  3. To kill.

    obsolete · transitive
  4. To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize.

    obsolete · transitive
  5. To affect with vexation or chagrin.

    transitive
    He seemed to enjoy mortifying them with news of every fresh hell loosed in the capital.
  6. To scare.

    transitive
    Please don't mortify your mother by telling her what a stupidly dangerous thing you did last night.
  7. To humble; to depress.

    obsolete · transitive
  8. To grant in mortmain.

    historical · transitive
  9. To lose vitality.

    intransitive
  10. To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic.

    archaic · transitive
  11. To gangrene.

    archaic · intransitive
  12. To be subdued.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.