How to Use mortification in a Sentence

mortification

noun
  • Liam, 29-year-old Rob learns to her mortification, is fresh out of high school and roughly 19 years old.
    — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 14 Feb. 2020
  • But the mortification here is not only for the Tories, or for Trump.
    — Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 9 July 2019
  • What form mortification should take, though, wasn’t clear, and the attempt to free the self of all its needs except the need for God can today look like masochism or mayhem.
    — Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 23 Jan. 2023
  • Mark grips his mouth as his eyes fill with mortification.
    — Sofie Birkin, Marie Claire, 9 Feb. 2021
  • This is not a movie for people who’d just as soon forget their own teenage mortifications.
    — The Washington Post, The Denver Post, 17 Mar. 2017
  • No one except a flagellant likes bad news, and trustees aren’t known for self-mortification with whips, chains, and tail pipes.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 27 Mar. 2021
  • The role play, designed to flip that polarity, has forced the white partners to look at color and see it deeply, even at the risk of mortification.
    — New York Times, 6 Oct. 2019
  • Your book is dealing with that too, this mortification of the flesh and Matrix-y refusal to engage with the body, denying the kids are going to find ways to make out in the bushes.
    — Hazlitt, 3 Apr. 2024
  • That the flippant nickname stuck to so august a trophy was a source of mortification to Mrs. Herrick.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Mar. 2022
  • His son, Nick, Jr., is a hyper-imaginative boy of sixteen who loves to write and dreams of being an artist, but still, to his mortification, wets the bed.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 17 May 2021
  • The most delightful of all mortifications is the idea that life, as Carl Jung said, really does begin at 40.
    — Mitch Wallace, Forbes, 2 Jan. 2025
  • Chalamet and Depp have since broken up, but the plague of paparazzi-induced mortification for the actor hasn't stopped.
    — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Then and now, the expressions on their faces reminded of the one on my sister’s when our mom used to correct our friends’ grammar or manners—mortification with a side of loathing.
    — Elisabeth Egan, Glamour, 7 Sep. 2017
  • That said, your obvious mortification should have served to prove that instinct wrong.
    — Washington Post, 28 June 2021
  • For my colleague Sophie Gilbert, the author’s depiction of mortification stood out the most.
    — Kate Cray, The Atlantic, 2 Apr. 2021
  • With its mortifications and sense of worldwide communion, the World Cup—which begins on June 14th—is a kind of global religion.
    — The Economist, 7 June 2018
  • Whetstone said the power was with the poster and encouraged her mother to be remorseful, express mortification with her actions and work to make amends.
    — Dan Perry, Newsweek, 31 Jan. 2025
  • This man who wanted to kill himself has found cosmic purpose in the bodily mortification required to conclude his quest.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 13 Aug. 2021
  • At a time when the daily news cycle reliably delivers a fresh source of mortification for most Americans, some moments of shame are stinging and acute.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 8 July 2020
  • Hong again employs the long table-time takes that have witnessed the mortification of so many drunken characters, this time skewering Donghwa.
    — Nicolas Rapold, Deadline, 20 Feb. 2025
  • To enable him to feel this guilt in his heart, and not merely exhibit all the exterior signs of mortification and remorse as a reaction to public pressure.
    — Joshua Cohen, WIRED, 25 Aug. 2017
  • A bovine nirvana, in other words, where the fleshly mortification of Theravada Buddhism does not apply.
    — Joseph Hincks / Hong Kong, Time, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Awkward, chubby, and wearing a pair of oversized glasses, the boy blushed in mortification as the teacher mangled his Greek name of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.
    — Jancee Dunn, Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2019
  • Sylvie saves everyone from further mortification by picking up the check.
    — Jessica M. Goldstein, Vulture, 15 Aug. 2024
  • Why would my deep mortification over a trivial workplace incident persist for so long?
    — Roxane Gay, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2023
  • Less than three years later, they had been subjected to a ritual mortification.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 25 Oct. 2023
  • More than a million Britons signed a petition berating her for inviting Trump for a state visit, which would entail the national mortification of seeing him presented to the Queen.
    — Amy Davidson, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2017
  • Harold and Danny, who plays a little piano but has never really worked and has just been dumped by his wife, turn up for the party in tuxedos and discover to their mortification that everyone else is dressed down, in I’m-too-rich-to-care jeans.
    — Kyle Smith, National Review, 30 Sep. 2017
  • That’s when my cheeks started to burn; mortification saturated my body.
    — Ariela Gittlen, New York Times, 31 Dec. 2024
  • MacCulloch is particularly engaging in his discussion of how baffling the early Christian mortification of the flesh would have seemed to contemporaries.
    — S. C. Cornell, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mortification.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: