/mawr'teuh fi kay"sheuhn/ , n.
1. a feeling of humiliation or shame, as through some injury to one's pride or self-respect.
2. a cause or source of such humiliation or shame.
3. the practice of asceticism by penitential discipline to overcome desire for sin and to strengthen the will.
4. Pathol. the death of one part of the body while the rest is alive; gangrene; necrosis.
[ 1350-1400; ME mortificacion mortification- (s. of mortificatio ), equiv. to morti- (see MORTIFY) + -fication- -FICATION ]
Syn. 1. See shame .