Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Liable or subject to death; not immortal.
  • adjective Of or relating to humans as being subject to death.
  • adjective Causing death; fatal: synonym: fatal.
  • adjective Fought to the death.
  • adjective Relentlessly hostile; implacable.
  • adjective Of great intensity or severity; dire.
  • adjective Conceivable; imaginable.
  • adjective Used as an intensive.
  • noun A human.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Extremely; excessively; perfectly: as, mortal angry; mortal drunk.
  • Subject to death; destined to die.
  • Human; of or pertaining to man, who is subject to death: as, mortal knowledge; mortal power.
  • Deadly; destructive to life; causing death, or that may or must cause death; fatal.
  • Deadly; implacable; to the death; such as threatens life: as, mortal hatred.
  • Such that injury or disease affecting it may cause death.
  • Bringing death; noting the time of death.
  • Incurring the penalty of spiritual death; inferring divine condemnation: opposed to venial: as, a mortal sin (see sin).
  • Extreme; very great or serious: as, mortal offense.
  • Long and uninterrupted; felt to be long and tedious.
  • Euphemistically, confounded; cursed: as, not a mortal thing to eat.
  • Drunk.
  • noun Man, as a being subject to death; a human being.
  • noun That which is mortal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A being subject to death; a human being; man.
  • adjective Subject to death; destined to die.
  • adjective Destructive to life; causing or occasioning death; terminating life; exposing to or deserving death; deadly
  • adjective Fatally vulnerable; vital.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the time of death.
  • adjective Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly.
  • adjective Human; belonging to man, who is mortal.
  • adjective colloq. Very painful or tedious; wearisome.
  • adjective an inveterate, desperate, or implacable enemy; a foe bent on one's destruction.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A human; someone susceptible to death.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective subject to death
  • noun a human being
  • adjective involving loss of divine grace or spiritual death
  • adjective unrelenting and deadly
  • adjective causing or capable of causing death

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mortālis, from mors, mort-, death; see mer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman mortal, Middle French mortal, and their source Latin mortālis, from mors ("death").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mortal.

Examples

  • _All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Therefore Socrates is mortal_.

    The Making of Arguments J. H. Gardiner

  • Cum causal regularly takes the Subjunctive; as, -- quae cum īta sint, _since this is so_; cum sīs mortālis, quae mortālia sunt, cūrā, _since you are mortal, care for what is mortal_.a. Note the phrase cum praesertim (praesertim cum), _especially since; _ as, --

    New Latin Grammar Charles E. Bennett

  • At best, matter is only a phenomenon of mortal mind, of which evil is the highest degree; but really there is no such thing as _mortal mind_, -- though we are compelled to use the phrase in the endeavor to express the underlying thought.

    Unity of Good Mary Baker Eddy 1865

  • _mortal_, from _mort_, a great quantity, is used as a particle of amplification; as _mortal tall, mortal little_.

    Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Plato is mortal, "will be necessary if either Socrates or _man_ is chosen as argument, but not if Plato or _mortal_ is chosen.

    Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays Bertrand Russell 1921

  • Socrates is mortal, "is necessary if Socrates is chosen as argument, but not if _man_ or _mortal_ is chosen.

    Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays Bertrand Russell 1921

  • When I say _Socrates is mortal_, the moment _Socrates_ is incomplete; it falls forward through the _is_ which is pure movement, into the _mortal_ which is indeed bare mortal on the tongue, but for the mind is _that mortal_, the _mortal Socrates_, at last satisfactorily disposed of and told off. [

    A Pluralistic Universe Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy William James 1876

  • Now, that was lucky for me, because when the police investigated, they talked to two witnesses, who were also living at my house at the time, and the detectives decided that what had happened between Donald and me was what they called mortal combat.

    KILLING WILLIS TODD BRIDGES 2010

  • Now, that was lucky for me, because when the police investigated, they talked to two witnesses, who were also living at my house at the time, and the detectives decided that what had happened between Donald and me was what they called mortal combat.

    KILLING WILLIS TODD BRIDGES 2010

  • Of that which we call mortal race Polycrates was the first; and he had great expectation of becoming ruler of Ionia and of the islands.

    The history of Herodotus — Volume 1 480? BC-420? BC Herodotus 1883

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • contronymic: fatal as in "mortal blow";living beings, "mortals"

    December 10, 2006