Word.ws English Dictionary

mortial

mortial is the obsolete form of mortal.

Meaning of mortal

Adjective

mortal (comparative more mortal, superlative most mortal)

  1. Susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal.
  2. Causing death; deadly, fatal, killing, lethal (now only of wounds, injuries etc.).
    • Blyndfold he was; and in his cruell fist
      A mortall bow and arrowes keene did hold […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    fatal, lethal, baneful
  3. Punishable by death.
  4. Fatally vulnerable.
    • Last of all, against himself he turns his sword, but missing the mortal place, with his poniard finishes the work.1670, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in The History of Britain, that Part Especially now Call’d England. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for James Allestry, […] , →OCLC
  5. Of or relating to the time of death.
    • Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
      Or in the natal or the mortal hour.1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC
  6. Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly; related to a life-and-death struggle.
    • mortal enemy

See all 13 meanings of mortal

Forms of mortial

comparativemore mortial
superlativemost mortial

Questions about mortial

What is mortial the obsolete form of?
Mortial is the obsolete form of mortal.

Words near mortial in the dictionary

  1. mortgagor
  2. mortgagors
  3. Morthen
  4. morthouse
  5. morthouses
  6. mortial
  7. mortice
  8. morticed
  9. morticer
  10. morticers
  11. mortices

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mortial (page history and authors); mortal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “mortial.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mortial. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.