Definition of "mortify" []

• To cause to experience shame, humiliation, or wounded pride; humiliate. (verb-transitive)
• To discipline (one's body and physical appetites) by self-denial or self-inflicted privation. (verb-transitive)
• To practice ascetic discipline or self-denial of the body and its appetites. (verb-intransitive)
• Pathology To undergo mortification; become gangrenous or necrosed. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word mortify here is, literally, to make to die."
• "True politeness consists in making every body happy about you; and as to mortify is to render unhappy, it can be nothing but the worst of breeding."
• "The apostle is not satisfied with assuring them that they are under no obligations to the flesh, to hearken to its suggestions, without reminding them where it will end if they do; and he uses the word "mortify" (put to death) as a kind of play upon the word "die" just before."