mortality

Definition

The state or quality of being mortal.

Etymology

From Old French mortalite, from Latin mortālitās, from mortālis (“relating to death”), from mors (“death”); equivalent to mortal + -ity.

Example Sentences

• "[H]er minde remembreth her mortalitie, / vvhat ſo is fayreſt ſhall to earth returne."
• "Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, / But sad mortality o’er-sways their power, / How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, / Whose action is no stronger than a flower?"
• "1714, Alexander Pope, letter to John Gay in Letters of Mr. Pope, and Several Eminent Persons, London, 1735, Volume 2, p. 208, I have been perpetually troubled with sickness of late, which has made me so melancholy that the Immortality of the Soul has been my constant Speculation, as the Mortality of my Body my constant Plague."

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