mortified
Americanadjective
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humiliated, ashamed, or deeply embarrassed.
Sternly lectured by the principal in front of her friends, my daughter felt suitably mortified and hopefully will never do such a thing again.
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Pathology. affected with gangrene or necrosis.
The removal of mortified tissue from wounds enables faster healing.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mortified
Explanation
To be mortified is to be extremely embarrassed. If your pants fell down in class, you'd be mortified. In science, mortified describes body tissue that's severely decayed. But the most common meaning of this word has to do with hurt feelings, not rotting flesh. You're mortified when you're so ashamed or embarrassed that you wish you could just shrivel up and die — kind of like mortified flesh, actually. Though people get embarrassed often, being mortified is a little more rare and a lot more severe. It means about the same as humiliated.
Vocabulary lists containing mortified
The Book Thief
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The Devil's Arithmetic
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Stargirl
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"Sometimes you're mortified, sometimes you're laughing at yourself, it's just a really weird experience and something that isn't normal for us."
From BBC • May 21, 2026
For instance, Washington would have been mortified to hear his rigorously trained Virginia Regiment characterized as a lowly militia.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 27, 2026
In Samantha's case, she said she was fortunate to have a strong support system around her who could temporarily help with bills in the short-term but she still felt "absolutely mortified" at what had happened.
From BBC • Apr. 18, 2026
Backers confessed that they were mortified that they had introduced him to their friends.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026
It flops hopelessly under her manipulations while I watch, mortified.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
