different between annoy vs mortify

English

Etymology

From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier (“to molest, harm, tire”), from Late Latin inodi? (“cause aversion, make hateful”, verb), from the phrase in odi? (“hated”), from Latin odium (“hatred”). Doublet of ennui. Displaced native Middle English grillen (“to annoy, irritate”), from Old English grillan (see grill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??/
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

annoy (third-person singular simple present annoys, present participle annoying, simple past and past participle annoyed)

1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
   • 1691, Matthew Prior, Pastoral to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely

     Say, what can more our tortured souls annoy / Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?

2. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
3. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.

   to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade

   • tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

Synonyms

• (to disturb or irritate) bother, bug, hassle, irritate, pester, nag, irk
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• please
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Related terms

Translations

Noun

annoy (plural annoys)

1. (now rare, literary) A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes.
   • 1532 (first printing), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose:

     I merveyle me wonder faste / How ony man may lyve or laste / In such peyne and such brennyng, / [...] In such annoy contynuely.

   • c. 1610, John Fletcher, “Sleep”:

     We that suffer long annoy / Are contented with a thought / Through an idle fancy wrought: / O let my joys have some abiding!
2. (now rare, literary) That which causes such a feeling.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, King Rchard III, IV.2:

     Sleepe in Peace, and wake in Ioy, / Good Angels guard thee from the Boares annoy [...].

   • 1872, Robert Browning, "Fifine at the Fair, V:

     The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, / The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy [...].

Synonyms

• (both senses) annoyance

Translations

References

• annoy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• annoy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Yonan, anyon, noyan, yanno

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman mortifier, Middle French mortifier, from Late Latin mortific? (“cause death”), from Latin mors (“death”) + -fic? (“-fy”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m??t?fa?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?m??t?fa?/

Verb

mortify (third-person singular simple present mortifies, present participle mortifying, simple past and past participle mortified)

1. (transitive) To discipline (one's body, appetites etc.) by suppressing desires; to practise abstinence on. [from 15th c.]

   Some people seek sainthood by mortifying the body.

   • 1767, Walter Harte, Eulogius: Or, The Charitable Mason

     With fasting mortify'd, worn out with tears.

   • 1688, Matthew Prior, An Ode

     Mortify thy learned lust.

   • Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.

2. (transitive, usually used passively) To embarrass, to humiliate. To injure one's dignity. [from 17th c.]

   I was so mortified I could have died right there; instead I fainted, but I swore I'd never let that happen to me again.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To kill. [14th–17th c.]
4. (obsolete, transitive) To reduce the potency of; to nullify; to deaden, neutralize. [14th–18th c.]
   • 1627, George Hakewill, Apologie […] of the Power and Providence of God

     He […] mortified them [pearls] in vineger aud drunke them vp

5. (obsolete, transitive) To kill off (living tissue etc.); to make necrotic. [15th–18th c.]
6. (obsolete, transitive) To affect with vexation, chagrin, or humiliation; to humble; to depress.
   • 22 September 1651 (date in diary), 1818 (first published), John Evelyn, John Evelyn's Diary

     the news of the fatal battle of Worcester, which exceedingly mortified our expectations

   • How often is [the ambitious man] mortified with the very praises he receives, if they do not rise so high as he thinks they ought!

7. (transitive, Scotland, law, historical) To grant in mortmain.
   • 1876 James Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, Part II, Chapter 14, p.453 (PDF 2.7 MB):

     the schoolmasters of Ayr were paid out of the mills mortified by Queen Mary

8. (intransitive) To lose vitality.
9. (intransitive) To gangrene.
10. (intransitive) To be subdued.

Synonyms

• (to discipline oneself by suppressing desires): macerate
• (to injure one's dignity): demean, humiliate, shame

Antonyms

• (to injure one's dignity): dignify, honor

Related terms

• mortification

Translations