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Mortify   /mˈɔrtɪfˌaɪ/   Listen
Mortify

verb
(past & past part. mortified; pres. part. mortifying)
1.
Practice self-denial of one's body and appetites.
2.
Hold within limits and control.  Synonyms: crucify, subdue.  "Mortify the flesh"
3.
Cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of.  Synonyms: abase, chagrin, humble, humiliate.
4.
Undergo necrosis.  Synonyms: gangrene, necrose, sphacelate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mortify" Quotes from Famous Books



... when I told him about it he acted real huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't mortify men by namin' a home like that for ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... embarrass, mortify, chagrin, discompose, humble, overawe, confound, disconcert, humiliate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... then, as all through life, and in grieving over it she says: "Often does their non-conformance mortify this frail heart when attempting to read in class.... I arose at half-past five this morning. [January 15.] I find it so much more advantageous." But the next day she sleeps till half-past six ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... man is depraved—which certainly is indisputable in the century in which it was born. According to it, man must change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation and meditation let us develop within ourselves the spiritual man; let our life be an ardent awaiting ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... prepared me in a measure for the visit, but the reality was even worse than I anticipated. And still they are the kindest-hearted people in the world, while Mr. Douglas is a man, they say, of excellent sense. George never lived at home much, and their heathenish ways mortify him, I know, though he never says a word except that ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... lowliest devotion, striving also by constant mortification to undo the sinful past rather than to achieve a saintliness fraught with peril. Each of his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline. In order to mortify the sense of sight he made it his rule to walk in the street with downcast eyes, glancing neither to right nor left and never behind him. His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women. From time to time also he balked them by a sudden effort of the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... never come back, and the man that was with him wrote that they got lost from each other, and water was so scarce and all that. And then, you know, I didn't get married again till you was 'most ten years old, Jason. I'm sure I don't know what to do. I don't want to mortify anybody, but I'd like to ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... do not ask you to restrain and mortify these things. But I do ask you to remember the end. It is as certain that joys will pall, it is as certain that subjects of interest will be exhausted, it is as certain that powers will decay, as that they now are what they are. All these grave, middle-aged, careful people round you were like you ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... boys and girls came here just to see us. It is our Christmas party. You'll mortify Mrs. Pragoff. You know how Fly mortified her this morning. Please don't ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... favoured by the Court, the monied interest. The middle classes were fully determined to keep out James and his family. But they regarded William only as the less of two evils; and, as long as there was no imminent danger of a counter-revolution, were disposed to thwart and mortify the sovereign by whom they were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of necessity, with their lives and fortunes. They were sullen and dissatisfied. "There was," as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to William, "a deadness and want of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... No more of this dull stuff. 'Tis time enough To whine and mortify thyself with penance, The present moment claims more gen'rous use; Thy beauty, night, and solitude, reproach me, For having talk'd thus long—come, let me press thee, [laying hold of her. Pant on thy ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... while she did so, turning over the leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an admiring amateur. Helen always played well, but less well than usual that day, for her generous nature felt abashed. It was as if she were showing off to mortify Violante. But Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately fond of music that she had no feeling left for the sense of her own inferiority. Yet she sighed when Helen rose, and Harley thanked Miss Digby for the delight ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... simple union is the best. Since the day when I met with my Lord, there has been no end to the sport of our love. I shut not my eyes, I close not my ears, I do not mortify my body; I see with eyes open and smile, and behold His beauty everywhere: I utter His Name, and whatever I see, it reminds me of Him; whatever I do., it becomes His worship. The rising and the setting are one to me; all contradictions are solved. Wherever ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... Family! I am come to keep open House; very fine, her whole Family! she's Plague enough to mortify any good Christian,—Tell her, my Lady and I am gone forth; tell her any thing ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... myself to worse misconstruction than that," she said. "And I have borne it patiently. The time has gone by, when you could mortify me by calling me ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... of the works of the ancients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapse ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... your intimate companion, I will not mortify Your Grace with the history of her origin, and an account of her genealogy, which I am sure would greatly distress you. Believe me, Madam, I should be sorry to give you a moment's mortification. My sincere desire is to do you good, by warning you of the danger ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... piety;—It was not thus," says Massillon, in his sermon on the Incarnation, "it was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to our ancestors. The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self-love, to do violence to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless gratifications; this is the essence of Christianity, the soul of piety. If you have not this spirit, you belong ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of the evil that is defiling the world, and fitting it for the final destruction. Yet to him who loves self-indulgence, it is more pleasing to confess to a fellow-mortal than to open the soul to God. It is more palatable to human nature to do penance than to renounce sin; it is easier to mortify the flesh by sackcloth and nettles and galling chains than to crucify fleshly lusts. Heavy is the yoke which the carnal heart is willing to bear rather than bow to ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... through the action undertaken. To know what one is to do and to move to do it promptly and by use of the requisite means is to be disciplined, whether we are thinking of an army or a mind. Discipline is positive. To cow the spirit, to subdue inclination, to compel obedience, to mortify the flesh, to make a subordinate perform an uncongenial task—these things are or are not disciplinary according as they do or do not tend to the development of power to recognize what one is about and ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... Sunday in particular their behaviour served to mortify me: I had desired my girls the preceding night to be drest early the next day; for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... intended merely as a place of lodgment for the stock and shirt-collar. This priest's nose and cheeks bore a large and bountiful crop of, what are sometimes called, "the fruits of good living;" indeed, his parochial duties were not of a kind calculated to mortify the flesh; and as his church was well endowed, and he received many presents from the wealthy members of his flock, it was not a matter of wonder, that he enjoyed such creature-comforts as lay in his way; and the Catholic clergy are generally possessed of a sufficient ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... while his noble Vandykes are displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched artist of his acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here gratis. The good creature has not the heart to mortify the painter at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour, surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... hurt the feelin's of my sect, do you suppose I would mortify 'em before the assembled nations of the earth, by slightin' 'em, by not payin' attention to 'em, and makin' 'em the first and prime object of ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... 'em the slip in the garden, to come and overhear thee: No fat overgrown virgin of forty ever offered herself so dog-cheap, or was more despised; methinks now this should mortify thee exceedingly. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... proportioned to the peccant humour and constitution of the patient, being duly and seasonably received within the body—what by their elementary virtues on the one side and peculiar properties on the other—do either benumb, mortify, and beclumpse with cold the prolific semence, or scatter and disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with and conducted the sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception, or lastly, shut up, stop, and obstruct the ways, passages, and conduits ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... A new Wench, I warrant—But prithee, Sham, I have other matters in hand; 'Sheart, I am so mortify'd with this same thought of Fighting, that I shall hardly think ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... above the knee. That'll mortify in twenty hours from now. Thank the Lord I never wasted much morphia on the niggers. There's plenty in stock. So it won't ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... sorrow, grieve, fash^, afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze^, feeze [U.S.]; disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret^, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... that wisest men could find, To mend the age and mortify mankind, Satire, well writ, has most successful prov'd. And cures, because ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... have laughed outright at this answer; but he knew it would mortify the young historian: so he only ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so mortify us as to get jilted on the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... upon by the common people with kindliness, as being thoroughly sincere in their religious professions. They are, at least, consistent in many respects in their professions and practice. They really mortify the flesh by penance, fasting, and wretched fare, as well as by dirt. They do not proclaim the virtues and charms of poverty, while they roll about in gilded coaches dressed in "purple and fine linen," or gloat over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... your phrases were precisely his. Your doctrine is simply Pessimism, with an element of dogmatic faith added. With Schopenhauer, the will to live is the root of sin; mortify this, deny the first instincts of your being, and you approach righteousness. Buddhism has the same system. And, in deducing all this from the plain teachings of Christianity, I am disposed to think ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... the Church command us to fast and abstain? A. The Church commands us to fast and abstain, in order that we may mortify our passions ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous

... "Mortify not yourself, Miss Burney, I entreat. Mr Piozzi is obliged to hasten into Windsor to bespeak apartments at the White Hart. Delay not, Piozzi. I will follow. Do I see my Burney ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... returned her mother. "And Matt says that a man of this young man's traditions might mortify you before ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... hesitation of a man who is all anxiety to soften hard truths. According to him, the Countess Sarah and Miss Ville-Handry did not get on well with each other; but he declared he was bound to say that the wrong was all on the young lady's side, who seemed to make it the study of her life to mortify her step-mother, while the latter bore the most irritating provocations with unchanging sweetness. He alluded to the calumnies which endangered Miss Henrietta's reputation, admitting that she had given some ground for them by thoughtless acts. He finally added that ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... surely you don't think Cecilia jealous; she only tries to excel and to please. She is more anxious to succeed than I am, it is true, because she has a great deal more activity, and perhaps more ambition; and it would really mortify her to lose this prize. You know that she proposed it herself; it has been her object for this month past, and I am sure she has taken ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth

... other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it became his pride to despise and his safety to mortify." ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... and we were not surprised at their shabby appearance when we learned that they each only had one coat a year in which to do all their work, no matter how dirty that work might be. Are they not there to mortify the flesh and learn economy? What is the want of raiment when compared with the wants of ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... logs of timber from the wood my girdle broke from the strain, so that my clothes hung loose. A monk behind me saw this and cutting a twig tied it so tightly around my sides that it has caused my flesh to mortify." Mochuda asked—"And why did you not loosen the twig?" The monk replied—"Because my body in not my own and he who tied it (the withe) has never loosed it." It was a whole year since the withe had been fastened around him. Mochuda said to him:—"Brother, you ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... literary reputation, and he had accordingly taken the mathematician to keep the accounts. Although the situation was a poor one, Senecal would but for it have died of starvation. Not wishing to mortify the worthy shopman, Frederick accepted ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... when they cannot answer to insult them; and motions have been made, not because they were thought right by those who offered them, but because they would certainly be carried, and would, by being carried, mortify their opponents. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... misfortune, Mr. Lovelace, as well as mine, at present. Every woman of discernment, I say as I say, [I had a mind to mortify a pride, that I am sure deserves to be mortified;] that your politeness is not regular, nor constant. It is not habit. It is too much seen by fits and starts, and sallies, and those not spontaneous. You must be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... want to take off your leg, my man, and I can stop up the holes as you call it; but you persist in using it, and if you do, the consequences will possibly be that the wounds will mortify, and the leg get into such a state that I shall have to amputate it to ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... wretched little creature like that. However, I will be revenged on her somehow, and I beg you will give me your help in the matter, and to tell me anything that you can think of that is likely to mortify her." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind which enabled, me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most unwelcome, affectionateness of manner. I ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... mouth was arrested and held still where it was, until a second rap permitted it to proceed in its carnal office, the interval being employed in silent ejaculation to the Deity, or perhaps, with some, in "curses not loud but deep" against the inexorable superior, who so compelled them to mortify ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... under the grass, stung him so painfully in the leg that he was forced to quit his design, and threw his gun down in a passion. The poison immediately infected his blood, and his whole body began to mortify; which, when he perceived, he could not help owning it to be just. "Fate," said he, "has brought destruction upon me while I was contriving the ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... it was—had nearly arrived. The queen's supposed pregnancy had increased her influence; and, constant herself in the midst of general indecision, she was able to carry her point. She would not mortify the legate, who had suffered for his constancy to the cause of her mother, with listening to Renard's personal objections; and when the character of the approaching House of Commons had been ascertained, she gained the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... child; I want my supper. Yes, and I'll see that they treat you better than they did me. Come this way! Yes,—mon Dieu! Mortify the flesh! Flatter the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... the Ottoman Empire. It was as if a man suffered from gout in his foot: he could get rid of the gout by wholesome living, the result of which would be that his foot ceased to trouble him. But the plan which he adopted was to cause his foot to mortify by process of inhuman savagery. When it was dead it ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... the outsides and walls, and have made themselves dens, and caves, and holes, and strongholds therein. Wherefore, O Mansoul! thy work, as to this, will be so much the more difficult and hard; that is, to take, mortify, and put them to death according to the will of my Father. Nor can you utterly rid yourselves of them, unless you should pull down the walls of your town, the which I am by no means willing you should. ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... with the sight, "The world," I cried, "Shall hear of this thy deed. My dog shall mortify the pride Of ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen

... you whatever I have I return.' She then asked for her keys, and gave them to the king. To the Princess Caroline she intrusted the care of her younger sisters; to the Duke of Cumberland, that of keeping up the credit of the family. 'Attempt nothing against your brother, and endeavour to mortify him by showing superior merit,' she said to him. She advised the king to marry again; he heard her in sobs, and with much difficulty got out this sentence: 'Non, j'aurai des maitresses' To which the queen made no other reply ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... after all this Mischief, I must stay here to be entertain'd with your Catterwauling, Mrs. Puss!—Out of my Sight, wanton Strumpet! you shall fast and mortify yourself into Reason, with now and then a little handsom Discipline to bring you ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay

... sleep, the last time he was out with her. It's a shame to keep him up so! As for myself, I would never go any where if I had to, for the lack of a man, always be dragging poor papa out. It must be so very mortifying. But nothing could mortify that girl; she is such an upstart. Her bonnets and her dresses are the talk of the town, because they are so ugly and unbecoming. But she has a gracious and pleasant manner, and sometimes has a good deal ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... of seclusion," she added, "there are features very different from our own case. We are not forced to impoverish our blood with insufficient diet, or mortify our flesh with various forms of punishment. We do not neglect the worship of God. We offer up daily thanks for His loving care of us, and sing His praises in continual hymns; and instead of wasting ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lands, and a ready table spread. But, should any of the faithful brethren in the neighbourhood bring a blessed dole of bread, we receive it as sent by providence, and bless the faith that brought it. Our raiment is of hair, sheepskins or shirts of palm fibre, all thread-bare and much patched, to mortify the frailty of the flesh. We wear the same clothing winter and summer, which, once put on, we may on no account put off until it be old and quite outworn. For by thus afflicting our bodies with the constraints ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... miserable humanity can enjoy it. They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla, the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him. But is not that subtly true? Yes, yes; Praxilla is right! We fast, we mortify ourselves—I have felt it all myself—to partake of divinity. We almost perish of hunger and thirst, when we might be so happy if only we would be satisfied with apples and pears! No man has ever yet succeeded in the great ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing without envy ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... was horrified. "Ernest, the idea of your talking about our friends as if they were cattle! I do trust you children will not mortify me before our guests by ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... our endeavour to set him always before us, that in all things we may act as in his immediate presence; that we may be filled with that holy fear, so that we may not dare wilfully to sin against him. We should earnestly entreat the Lord to mortify the power and working of sin and unbelief within us, by making Christ appear more and more precious in our eyes, and ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... They keep it so strict, that labourers ready to faint with thirst dare not taste a drop of water. They have a sort of monks called Dervises [sic], who live a very austere life, keeping a profound silence, go barefoot, with a leather girdle round their bodies, full of sharp points to mortify the flesh, and sometimes beat and burn themselves with hot irons: they are very charitable, and spare nothing for the maintenance of the poor. The government is monarchial; the Grand Signior, or Sultan, is absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects; ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... in any gathering they happened to form part of, but stood forlornly in corners, like the rest of humanity. Perhaps he regretted even the sham celebrity he had enjoyed, for his was a disposition that rose to any opportunity of self-display—but in time the contrast ceased to mortify him, for most of the invitations dropped; he was only asked to places now as the husband of Mabel, and in the height of the season most of their evenings were passed at home, to the perfect contentment of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... Benedick's phrase, 'the world must go on.' He who honestly wants his wife to sit at the head of his table and carve ... that is be his help-meat (not 'help mete for him')—he shall assuredly find a girl of his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend to mortify, who would be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if that man offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a 'Every Lady Her Own Market-Woman, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... remembering—whether, when referring to the animal, he is to write bear, or bare, or bair, or bayr, or bere, as in where. So with the word you. It seems to us the most natural thing in the world to spell it y o u. And when the little pupil, judging by the sound, writes it y u, we mortify him by our ridicule, as if he had done something in itself absurd. But how is he to know, except by the hardest, most meaningless, and distasteful toil of the memory, whether he is to write you, or yu, or yoo, or ewe, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... left in their flight by the vanquished princes of darkness. This was cast out of the world and shut up somewhere in the dark air, and is the Manichaan hell, presided over by the king of the demons. If a soul, while in the body, mortify the flesh, observe a severe ascetic moral discipline, fix its thoughts, affections, and prayers on God and its native home, it will on leaving the body return to the celestial light. But if it neglect these duties and become more deeply entangled in the toils ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... not depicting himself. The poem reflects him more or less truly in the doctrine of Divine Love, the belief in personal guidance, and the half-contemptuous admiration with which the speaker regards those who will mortify the flesh in obedience to a Christ-man. But it belies the evidence of his whole work when, as in Section XVII., it represents moral truth as either innate to the human spirit, or directly revealed to it; and we shall presently ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... of attending to any Motions of Reason and Humanity; then make a general Sally, and attack all that are so unfortunate as to walk the Streets through which they patrole. Some are knock'd down, others stabb'd, others cut and carbonado'd. To put the Watch to a total Rout, and mortify some of those inoffensive Militia, is reckon'd a Coup d'eclat. The particular Talents by which these Misanthropes are distinguished from one another, consist in the various kinds of Barbarities which they execute upon their Prisoners. Some are celebrated for a happy Dexterity in tipping ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... of his youth promis'd it not. The breath no sooner left his Fathers body, But that his wildnesse, mortify'd in him, Seem'd to dye too: yea, at that very moment, Consideration like an Angell came, And whipt th' offending Adam out of him; Leauing his body as a Paradise, T' inuelop and containe Celestiall Spirits. Neuer was such a sodaine Scholler ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... but you are right, Bob. In looking at the two craft, last evening, I gave the preference to the Dragon, though I kept my opinion to myself, lest I might mortify those who built ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye can not do the things that ye would." Gal. 5:16, 17. "For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all, and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the people detest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... our readers have already recognized the lady who instigated the attack on the "turgotine," may be allowed to keep the name which she used to escape the dangers that threatened her in Alencon. The publication of her real name would only mortify a noble family already deeply afflicted at the misconduct of this woman; whose history, by the bye, has already been given on ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... the whole Trinity for ten shekels. Out upon you, Pharisees! ye falsifiers of truth! ye apes of Deity! You are not ashamed to kneel before crucifixes and altars; you lacerate your backs with thongs, and mortify your flesh with fasting; and with these pitiful mummeries you think, fools as you are, to veil the eyes of Him whom, with the same breath, you address as the Omniscient, just as the great are the most bitterly mocked by those who flatter them ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... intermingled. In every one there are the Reason and the Moral sense, the passions that prompt to evil, and the sensual appetites. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die," said Paul, writing to the Christians at Rome, "but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," he said, writing to the Christians of Galatia, "and these are contrary ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... going to Communion, the Father, Fr. John of the Cross, [16]—divided the Host between me and another sister. I thought it was done, not because there was any want of Hosts, but that he wished to mortify me because I had told him how much I delighted in Hosts of a large size. Yet I was not ignorant that the size of the Host is of no moment; for I knew that our Lord is whole and entire in the smallest particle. ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... Let him encourage the Scholar if he improves; let him mortify him, without Beating, for Indolence; let him be more rigorous for Negligences; nor let the Scholar ever end a Lesson without ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... Eurilas's place Had filled, throughout the night, with wily grace, And now to Damon and his Cloris flew, With ridicule the Gascon to pursue; Recounted all the terrors and affright, Which Dorilas had felt throughout the night. To mortify still more the silly swain, And fill his soul with ev'ry poignant pain, She gave a glimpse of beauties to his view, And from ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... had believed themselves invincible. The effect of this misfortune was to mortify and infuriate them. They were eager to fling themselves again upon the enemy and win back their laurels; but Caesar saw that they were excited and unsteady, and that they required time to collect themselves. He spoke to them with his usual calm cheerfulness. He praised their courage. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... "Well, I must mortify myself. I must confess that I was mistaken. Monsieur de Mazarin is not a man of genius, as I thought, he is a man of no origin—once a servant of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and he got on by intrigue. He is an upstart, a man ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and charmed to welcome their monde, assure them of the great regret felt at their departure—however you may wish them gone—say, or repeat as said by others, what will please; and never allude, even indirectly, to anything that can possibly hurt or mortify any one. When other visitors are announced, those who have been above ten minutes, had better go: a man should slip away without leave-taking. If discovered, and begged to remain by the mistress of the house, he must be asked and refuse three times before he consents; then sit down for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... perform it; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you receive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself and myself, if you know anything that has happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... because to go to the theatre costs money. He doesn't go to concerts because concerts cost money. He is a teetotaler, not so much because he wishes to keep his stomach clean and his head clear, but because his ideal men are teetotalers, grad-grinds, who mortify the flesh in order to save. And the money is saved with a bad intention. The aim is either to start independently in business, or else to secure shares in the undertaking paying the highest dividends compatible with security. The object of this man is to leave his class ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... see, she does not hate me! How it would mortify my vanity, if I thought there was a woman in the world, much more this, that could hate me! 'Tis evident, villain as she thinks me, that I should not be an odious villain, if I could but at last in one instance cease to be a villain! She could not hold it, determined as she had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... Christian had convinced himself of the vanity of the world, he said: "It is the weakness of the flesh and the enticements of the wicked which tempt me to sin. Therefore I will withdraw from the world and mortify the flesh." This is the spirit which drove him into the desert or the mountains, to live in a cave with a lion or a wolf for his sole companion. This is the spirit which took St. Anthony into a solitary place in Egypt. It led St. Simeon Stylites to secure a more perfect ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... to see all things now. Why could we not do so before? I have had my sinful worldly dream of happiness, and death has ended it. When I heard of his death and Jim's my heart turned to stone. All the strength I have shall be given to religion from this out. I can ease my heart and mortify the flesh for the good of my soul. To God—to the Holy Virgin—who hears the sorrows of such as me, I can pray day and night for their souls' welfare—for mine, for yours. And oh, Dick! think when that day, that dreadful day, comes that Aileen is praying for you—will pray for you till ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... if, full fed with meat and drink, The flesh thou ne'er dost mortify, The mind, that spark of sacred flame, By pleasure dulled, must fail and die, And pent in its gross prison-house The ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... to yer steeple-house, Nicholas Stevens," said Matthew, "and mortify yer fatherly bosom for the good of the only soul the Almighty has gean to yer charge, and mind the auld saying, 'Nivver use the taws when a gloom ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash[obs3], afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze (U[obs3].S.); disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret|, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to the question; break ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... work on meagre diet as well, or better than any other corps. They would march two days on a pipe of tobacco; or for a week, with the addition of a biscuit and a dram. But when they did such things, it was no sign of any abstract love of temperance, or wish to mortify the flesh; it was simply a token of the extreme poverty of the district in which they found themselves. For the article provend they always kept a bright look-out. A greasy havresack, especially on the line of march, is the soldier's first desideratum; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... stood with head averted, drinking in all that was said. To hurt her, to lower her pride appealed to Heinrich; his silence would not benefit the dead woman, while speech would cruelly hurt and mortify both Kathleen and her father. "My government was anxious to secure Mr. Whitney's inventions; he would not sell to them, although Baron—" he stopped and scowled at Miller—"offered him a large sum. Whitney stuck to it that none but his own country could have ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... by the same subtle and piercing Body that produces the stink; both these effects proceeding from hence, that by the Alcalizate Salt, the Sea Salt that enter'd the composition of the Sal Armoniack is mortify'd and made more fixt, and thereby a divorce is made between it and the volatile Urinous Salt, which being at once set at liberty, and put into motion, begins presently to fly away, and to offend the Nostrils and Eyes it meets with by the way. And if the ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... of this letter!" he murmured, as with a sigh he smoothed the paper and read it over. "I see it plainly," he said then to himself; "with right unworthy motive, these lords of the duchy of Cleves intend to vex and mortify me. To ask me to give them the Electoral Prince for their stadtholder, to fix his residence among them! That were a fine story forsooth, to send our son away, that he, too, may perchance rebel against us. It is an abominable thing, which I shall never ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... most punctilious respect and nice regard to precedency, even by words of courtesy—'Your ladyship does me honour,' etc.—Lady St. James contrived to mortify and to mark the difference between those with whom she was, and with whom she was not, upon terms of intimacy and equality. Thus the ancient grandees of Spain drew a line of demarcation between themselves and the newly-created nobility. Whenever or wherever they met, ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was, moreover, a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Robert was pacing up and down by the side of a ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... not the gout, the wonted remedy for which is chastity and all beside that belongs to the regimen of a humble friar. They flatter themselves, too, that others wot not that over and above the meagre diet, long vigils and orisons and strict discipline ought to mortify men and make them pale, and that neither St. Dominic nor St. Francis went clad in stuff dyed in grain or any other goodly garb, but in coarse woollen habits innocent of the dyer's art, made to keep out the cold, and not for shew. To which matters 'twere well God had a care, no less than to the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not a rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over in silence, not caring to mortify him. ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... Avarice owns no heart, has no natural affections. You may go, but it is only to mortify your pride, agonize your feelings, and harden your kind nature against the whole world, without producing any ultimate benefit ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... inn where I had put up; and afterward returned to supper at the archbishop's palace, where a neatly furnished room was got ready for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify the flesh. The day following his Grace sent for me quite as soon as I was ready to go to him. It was to give me a homily to transcribe. He made a point of having it copied with all possible accuracy. It was done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, nor comma, nor the minutest tittle of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... sap and juice in their talk. When they think they think clearly. When they speak they express themselves with an energy and directness which mortify the thin speech of conventional persons. Here is Farfrae, the young Scotchman, in the tap-room of the Three Mariners Inn of Casterbridge, singing of his ain contree with a pathos quite unknown ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... good men of sympathy with all the living. A few men had made a fire in the gnawing damp and cold, and round it they sat, even the unwounded Boer prisoners. For themselves they took the outer ring, and not a word did any man say that could mortify the wound of defeat. In the afternoon Tommy was a hero, in the evening he ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... high official; and came up to stand his trial for conspiracy and sedition, in just such a manner as he might be presumed to proceed to take the chair at some popular municipal assembly; and this was just the thing qualified to please those who were on his own side, and mortify the feelings of the party so bitterly opposed to him. There was a bravado in it, and an apparent contempt, not of the law so much as of the existing authorities of the law, which was well qualified ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and his safety to mortify. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... is universally considered as the most degraded that a mean man can be guilty of. It is filthy to see men staggering about under the influence of bad whiskey, or of any kind of whiskey. He who sends a young husband to his new cabin home intoxicated, to mortify and torment his family; or who sells liquor to the uneducated Indians, that they may fight and murder, must have his conscience— if he has any at all— cased over with sole leather. Mr. Gough ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... with the sight, 'The world,' I cried, 'Shall hear of this thy deed; My dog shall mortify the pride Of man's ...
— Heads and Tales • Various



Words linked to "Mortify" :   injure, mortification, train, hold in, moderate, rot, desist, spite, degrade, check, bruise, hurt, disgrace, hold, crush, demolish, control, contain, refrain, curb, wound, abstain, condition, put down, demean, take down, discipline, smash, waste, offend



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