mortification
mortification Lexical Profile
mortification Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A feeling of acute embarrassment, shame, or wounded pride.
"To her utter mortification, she realized she had sent the confidential email to the entire company."
The religious or ascetic practice of subduing one's bodily desires and appetites through self-denial, fasting, or physical discipline.
"Medieval monks often practiced strict mortification of the flesh as a form of spiritual devotion."
The localized death and decay of living body tissue, typically resulting from infection or loss of blood supply (archaic or historical in medical contexts).
"Before the discovery of antiseptics, historical surgeons frequently had to amputate limbs to prevent mortification from spreading."
• Rhymes for mortification
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed from Old French mortification, from Late Latin mortificātiōnem, a noun of action from mortificāre ('to cause to die, subdue'), ultimately from Latin mors ('death') and facere ('to make'). Originally used in theology for subduing bodily desires, it later broadened to describe acute humiliation.