• (British) IPA: /ˈmɔːtɪfaɪ/
• (America) IPA: /ˈmɔɹtɪfaɪ/

mortify

1. (transitive) To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on. [from 15th c.]

   Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.

   • With fasting mortified, worn out with tears.

   • 1688, Matthew Prior, An Ode

     Mortify thy learned lust.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Colossians 3:5 ↗:

     Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.

2. (transitive, usually, used passively) To embarrass, to humiliate. To injure one's dignity. [from 17th c.]

   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. (obsolete, transitive) To kill. [14th–17th c.]
4. (obsolete, transitive) To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize. [14th–18th c.]
   • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie: In Ten Centuries

     Quicksilver is mortified with turpentine.

   • He mortified pearls in vinegar.

5. (obsolete, transitive) To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic. [15th–18th c.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     Servius the Grammarian being troubled with the gowt, found no better meanes to be rid of it, than to apply poison to mortifie {{transterm

6. (obsolete, transitive) To affect with vexation, chagrin, or humiliation; to humble; to depress.
   • 22 September 1651 (date in diary), 1818 (first published), John Evelyn, John Evelyn's Diary

     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!

7. (transitive, Scotland, legal, historical) To grant in mortmain.
   • 1876 James Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, Part II, Chapter 14, p.453 (PDF 2.7 MB ↗):

     the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary

8. (intransitive) To lose vitality.
9. (intransitive) To gangrene.
10. (intransitive) To be subdued.

• (to discipline oneself by suppressing desires) macerate
• (to injure one's dignity) demean, humiliate, shame

• (to injure one's dignity) dignify, honor

• mortification

• French: mortifier, macérer
• Spanish: mortificar

• Spanish: mortificar

• German: töten
• Spanish: matar