What's the difference between mortify and mortmain?
Mortify
Definition:
(v. t.) To destroy the organic texture and vital functions of; to produce gangrene in.
(v. t.) To destroy the active powers or essential qualities of; to change by chemical action.
(v. t.) To deaden by religious or other discipline, as the carnal affections, bodily appetites, or worldly desires; to bring into subjection; to abase; to humble.
(v. t.) To affect with vexation, chagrin, or humiliation; to humble; to depress.
(v. i.) To lose vitality and organic structure, as flesh of a living body; to gangrene.
(v. i.) To practice penance from religious motives; to deaden desires by religious discipline.
(v. i.) To be subdued; to decay, as appetites, desires, etc.
Example Sentences:
(1) she shudders – she has declined all reality TV invitations, and the closest she has ever come to a wardrobe malfunction was a minor ding-dong over some exposed thigh once while presenting Crimewatch, about which she was mortified.
(2) EPA Gazza’s Italia 90 tears were but a trickling tributary compared with the Amazon of anguish unleashed by the shell-shocked hosts during their mortifying 7-1 loss to Germany.
(3) Karen Harding later described herself as “mortified”.
(4) He added that the situation was equally bad for his two sons, who were mortified by the pictures published in the News of the World.
(5) I don't use my kids' real names on my blog and I try to avoid writing anything that would have mortified me growing up, but might they resent me later?
(6) Farage prefaced his comments with a prediction that he was sure the other leaders would be “mortified that I dare to even talk about it”.
(7) He is toughest of all on himself: nearly 50 years on he is still mortified by his rhyming of "woman" with "human" in a song that got yanked from Anyone Can Whistle .
(8) "A mortifying and appalling experience," said one, while another fan posted on the standup's Facebook page: "Absolutely awful.
(9) Smith replied: “It has been the most mortifying experience for me in this contest to have been painted as sexist, because it’s the last thing I am.
(10) It was mortifying, actually.” “But you decided to play into it?” I ask her.
(11) They’d be mortified if they were caught doing that to LGBT people or Muslims.
(12) The presenter apologised and said he was "mortified" by the accusation .
(13) After one particularly mortifying Saturday afternoon when she saw me in the Wimpy with – the horror of it all!
(14) The story of his life mortified him and sent him scurrying for excuses.
(15) My hope is that the government of Sheikh Hasina might actually be mortified by this letter.” Bangladesh must act on these brutal attacks on bloggers | Letters Read more The letter comes after the blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was hacked to death last week on a crowded street in Sylhet , Bangladesh’s fifth-largest city.
(16) I have plenty of Labour-voting friends who are happy to cheer Venezuelan nationalism, but who would be mortified to be called British nationalists.
(17) Read it as a teenager and you wince for poor mortified Lizzie and Jane, thinking perhaps of times when our own mother said the wrong thing.
(18) He added: "I am mortified to have done this, because it breaches the most basic ethical rule: don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.
(19) I’d be mortified if Boris Johnson was made leader of the Tory party, because it will say something profoundly awful about British politics.” “I think he is a showman, and an effective class clown if you like, but the class clown tends to be disruptive, as I think he would be if he had the chance to put his silly views into practice.” The Conservative former chancellor Norman Lamont also came to Johnson’s defence, saying it was a “fact there were fascist theorists who believed very strongly in a united Europe”.
(20) When Aston Pride ended this March, local people were mortified at receiving no recognition, not even a junior official from Eric Pickles's Department for Communities to visit, or a letter of praise for being the top NDC after all those years of giving so much and overcoming such obstacles.
Mortmain
Definition:
(n.) Possession of lands or tenements in, or conveyance to, dead hands, or hands that cannot alienate.
Example Sentences:
(1) There's a concept in law called mortmain, meaning the hand of the dead.
(2) But it is a certainty that some will be applauding – most notably those who believe the internet has made mortmain historically obsolete.