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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Twitter users, already unsettled by videos of Trump jiggling to a traditional ardah sword dance in an idiosyncratic gait of rigid mortification, were then set for a further shock.
    Isobel Thompson, The Hive, 22 May 2017
  • There’s mortification, bewilderment, klutzy desire and sometimes, between rounds of beer pong, the stirrings of self-discovery.
    New York Times, 15 Nov. 2021
  • Instead, she’s locked herself in the bathroom, a predicament that leaves Norma panting with mortification and Roy obsessively contemplating the waste of an $8,000 wedding.
    Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2022
  • It’s prurient and obscene, and its mortification has been taken up by news media for everybody to see repeatedly and thus abuse themselves — self-righteously.
    Armond White, National Review, 26 May 2021
  • The past is no longer needed to provide periodic mortification.
    Tom Maxwell, Longreads, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Placating the goddesses through blood sacrifice, decorative offerings and self mortification, was – and in some places, still is – a way of preparing for a pandemic in parts of India.
    Tulasi Srinivas, The Conversation, 15 June 2020
  • My emotional pendulum has swung from rage to mortification.
    Teen Vogue, 10 Sep. 2019
  • Waiting for a consensus means accepting more years of stasis, a trillion trips through the same warren of mortification, the persistence of frustration, the ever-present shadow of crippling breakdowns, and the certainty of regional decline.
    Justin Davidson, Curbed, 5 May 2021
  • A touch of surrealism helps express Alex’s mortification at her need for assistance, as well as the depression that swallows her up when she’s intimidated into giving up parts of her autonomy late in the season.
    Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2021

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: