mortalities

Noun

mortality (countable and uncountable, plural mortalities)

1. The state of being susceptible to death.
   • [H]er minde remembreth her mortalitie, / vvhat ſo is fayreſt ſhall to earth returne.1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “[Amoretti.] Sonnet XIII”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. […], London: […] [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, signature [A8], verso

   Antonyms:

   immortality

2. (archaic) The quality of being punishable by death.
   • […] actions of Charity do alleviate, as I may say, and take off from the Mortality of the Sin.1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act II, page 28
3. (archaic) The quality of causing death.
   • Hold therefore Angelo: / In our remoue, be thou at full, our selfe: / Mortallitie and Mercie in Vienna / Liue in thy tongue, and heart: Old Escalus / Though first in question, is thy secondary. / Take thy Commission.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

   Synonyms:

   deadliness, lethality

4. Deaths resulting from an event (such as a war, epidemic or disaster).
   • […] the Mortality was so great in the Yard or Alley, that there was no Body left to give Notice to the Buriers or Sextons, that there were any dead Bodies there to be bury’d.1722 March, H[enry] F[oe] [pseudonym; Daniel Defoe], A Journal of the Plague Year: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] Nutt […]; J. Roberts […]; A. Dodd […]; and J. Graves […], →OCLC, page 200
5. The number of deaths per given unit of population over a given period of time.
   • In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.1776 March 9, Adam Smith, chapter VIII, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. […], volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, book I (Of...

   Synonyms:

   w:mortality rate, MR, death rate, DR

6. (figuratively) Death.
   • Why am I mockt with death, and length’nd out / To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet / Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth / Insensible,1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

   Synonyms:

   fatality, quietus, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition, defunction, dematerialization

See all 7 meanings of mortality