mortify

In a sequence that would mortify anyone averse to audience participation, he gently beseeches a handful of patrons to stand with their hands up and foreheads against the wall, like a row of perpetrators.

From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2024

That it seems a choice at all is what should mortify us.

From Salon ● Feb. 9, 2024

A few years after I sent the quarterback the audio recording, a friend who lived in his dorm told me that he’d played it aloud for his buddies in an effort to mortify me.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2024

“Don’t take advantage of your own position and role to mortify the other.”

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2022

“What’s the point of being old if you can’t mortify the young? Well, I’ll leave you two in peace. Good day, young lady. It was a real pleasure.”

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

“The idea that I’d go out with a recent widower just mortifies me,” Carolyn told THR.

From Salon ● Nov. 29, 2023

It said the spread of English "demeans and mortifies" Italian and proposed that all public and private bodies had to use the language of Dante to promote their goods and services.

From Reuters ● Mar. 31, 2023

Being stalked by an invisible enemy surely mortifies those with an obsessive-compulsive fear of germs, and deepens the distress of many who have experienced waves of uncontrollable anxiety before the epidemic.

From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2020

It also happens to be about 15 miles downstream via Upper Talarik Creek from the proposed Pebble Mine – a geographic coincidence that mortifies fish biologists.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 23, 2012

I ought to have read more, for I find I don’t know anything, and it mortifies me.

From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Rolincik was assigned a slow French ballad and was mortified when the instructor said she was doing too much.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

If I was mortified just to breathe, how could I even think about loving another man?

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026

"I was mortified," she says, "but eventually the desire to play outweighed the embarrassment. I wrote my first song, and that opened the floodgates."

From BBC ● Apr. 28, 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

“That is very true,” replied Elizabeth, “and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

From "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

You should, and when you win, I’m sure your acceptance speech will be somewhat mortifying for your kids, so two wins.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026

On this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the DOJ’s rather mortifying confession and its implications for the broader battle over Trump’s federalization of the Guard.

From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2025

Listening to the European golfers plead with fans to not chuck beers at a colleague’s spouse was mortifying.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2025

It was their most mortifying failure since losing 5-0 against Artmedia Bratislava 20 years ago.

From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025

Bethe’s stark conclusion that “it seems useless to build cyclotrons of larger proportions than the existing ones” appeared at a delicate and potentially mortifying moment for the Rad Lab.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik