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

I wonder what he needs to hide, because there is enough here in his living room that should mortify him.

From "Counting by 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan

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

“I know not which mortifies me most,” he wrote, “that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things.”

From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2018

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

One of the women described to the jury how she had "froze" after the incident while the other said she had been "mortified".

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026

Backers confessed that they were mortified that they had introduced him to their friends.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

I was at a sleepover and was mortified.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026

Just six months ago Julia saying that'd've mortified me, but my sister'd asked it seriously.

From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

Imagine how mortifying it would be if anyone ever read your diary.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026

Little did I know this would turn out to be equal parts amazing and mortifying.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025

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

Mr Holliday used to really embarrass me because I would play with the boys and girls in school and he would tell all the boys to pass to me, but that was mortifying for me.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2025

Godly glamour moms who invited your friends over for tea and guy talk—that was just mortifying.

From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan