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Mortifying   Listen
verb
Mortify  v. t.  (past & past part. mortified; pres. part. mortifying)  
1.
To destroy the organic texture and vital functions of; to produce gangrene in.
2.
To destroy the active powers or essential qualities of; to change by chemical action. (Obs.) "Quicksilver is mortified with turpentine." "He mortified pearls in vinegar."
3.
To deaden by religious or other discipline, as the carnal affections, bodily appetites, or worldly desires; to bring into subjection; to abase; to humble; as, to mortify the flesh. "With fasting mortified, worn out with tears." "Mortify thy learned lust." "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth."
4.
To affect with vexation, chagrin; to depress. "The news of the fatal battle of Worcester, which exceedingly mortified our expectations." "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!"
5.
To humiliate deeply, especially by injuring the pride of; to embarrass painfully; to humble; as, the team was mortified to lose by 45 to 0.



Mortify  v. i.  
1.
To lose vitality and organic structure, as flesh of a living body; to gangrene.
2.
To practice penance from religious motives; to deaden desires by religious discipline. "This makes him... give alms of all that he hath, watch, fast, and mortify."
3.
To be subdued; to decay, as appetites, desires, etc.



adjective
Mortifying  adj.  
1.
Tending to mortify; affected by, or having symptoms of, mortification; as, a mortifying wound; mortifying flesh.
2.
Subduing the appetites, desires, etc.; as, mortifying penances.
3.
Tending to humble or abase; humiliating; as, a mortifying repulse.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mortifying" Quotes from Famous Books



... hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... but two drawbacks in the least considerable. The first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom (from the demands of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself so open. The other, if less momentous, was more mortifying. In early days, at my mother's knee, as a man may say, I had acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have never since been able to lose) of singing Just before the Battle. I have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce audible about a dinner-table, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... and in which she seemed to take singular delight, until Mrs. Pickle, on pretence of consulting her ease, told her one day she would take that trouble on herself, and for the future assume the management of her own family. Nothing could be more mortifying to Mrs. Grizzle than such a declaration; to which, after a considerable pause, and strange distortion of look, she replied: "I shall never refuse or repine at any trouble that may conduce to my brother's advantage."—"Dear madam," answered the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... I am?" cried Delphine, flushing up, "how have you treated me? You would not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house against me; you have never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip by. And when did I come, as you were always doing, to drain our poor father, a thousand francs at a time, till he is left as you see him now? That is all your doing, sister! I myself have seen my father as often as I could. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... happiness of Illinois, and the preservation of the rights and liberty of its inhabitants, do credit alike to the native benevolence of your heart and to those divine and political principles which distinguish the real Christian and Republican, and cannot fail to present a contrast, which, however mortifying it may be to me as an Illinoisan, cannot but be highly gratifying to me as a man, to see one so far removed from the scene, and without any other interest except that which he feels in the general happiness ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various


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