mortal
21
7.0
- adjective
- /ˈmɔrtəl/
:
mortal
- Islamabad might forfeit U.S. foreign assistance and drive Washington into closer cooperation with its mortal enemy, India.
- a mortal enemy
- a mortal conflict
What you are about to witness is a strange sort of mortal combat between a man and his beliefs.
- What you are about to witness is a strange sort of mortal combat between a man and his beliefs.
- And then you get your tattoos that shows you what gang you belong to, and the others become your mortal enemies.
Examples
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The two rivals are engaged in a mortal conflict that could destroy them both.
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Aslan and the Chieftain are locked in mortal combat.
Fiction book (1991) -
God, please destroy the power of your mortal enemy!
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You go to my mortal enemy for help?
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Once again we are locked in mortal battle.
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If the hunt chief is alive, he becomes our mortal enemy.
Fiction book (1993) -
What you are about to witness is a strange sort of mortal combat between a man and his beliefs.
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Each one came to perceive the other as a mortal enemy in a zero-sum game.
Academic text (2009) -
From time immemorial, vampires and witches have been mortal enemies, generation after generation, one millennium to the next.
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Back in the old days, Crow and Cheyenne were mortal enemies, like Crow and Sioux.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
Antonyms
Idioms
Compounds
- Specialized
13
8.2
Very serious wrongdoing in Christian belief that stops God from forgiving you unless you say you are sorry
How Hostile
Surface Forms
Morphology
mortal = mort + al
The 'deadly, deadly opposed' sense is a metaphorical extension of 'death' + '-al'; the connection is visible but somewhat idiomatic and may not be fully inferable by learners.
Etymology
Mortal comes from the Latin mortalis, from mors meaning 'death'. So a 'mortal' enemy is an enemy who could cause 'death' or whom you will never forgive, which is why the phrase means a deadly enemy.