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Mortal vs Sortal - What's the difference?

mortal | sortal |

As adjectives the difference between mortal and sortal

is that mortal is susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal while sortal is (philosophy) of or pertaining to a sort.

As nouns the difference between mortal and sortal

is that mortal is a human; someone susceptible to death while sortal is (philosophy) a type of universal that defines a particular sort of object.

mortal

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal.
  • * 1883 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), :
    • I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of his confessions and make an end of me.
  • Causing death; deadly, fatal, killing, lethal (now only of wounds, injuries etc.).
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.11:
    • Blyndfold he was; and in his cruell fist / A mortall bow and arrowes keene did hold […].
  • Fatally vulnerable; vital.
  • * Milton
    • Last of all, against himself he turns his sword, but missing the mortal place, with his poniard finishes the work.
  • Of or relating to the time of death.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, / Or in the natal or the mortal hour.
  • Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly.
  • * Dryden
    • The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright.
  • * mortal enemy
  • Human; belonging to man, who is mortal.
    • mortal''' wit or knowledge; '''mortal power
  • * Milton
    • The voice of God / To mortal ear is dreadful.
  • Very painful or tedious; wearisome.
    • a sermon lasting two mortal hours
    (Sir Walter Scott)
  • (UK, slang) Very drunk; wasted; smashed.
    • Let's go out and get mortal !

    Derived terms

    * mortality * mortal sin

    Synonyms

    * (causing death) fatal, lethal, baneful

    Antonyms

    * (susceptible to death) immortal, everlasting * (of or relating to death) natal

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A human; someone susceptible to death.
  • :
  • *1596 , (William Shakespeare), (w, A Midsummer Night's Dream)
  • *:Lord what fools these mortals be!
  • *
  • *:But then I had the flintlock by me for protection. ¶ There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window.

    • Antonyms

    * immortal

    sortal

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (philosophy) Of or pertaining to a sort
  • * {{quote-book, 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, section=, chapter=Chapter III: Of General Terms
    • , passage=But, it being evident that things are ranked under names into sorts or species, only as they agree to certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the essence of each genus, or sort, comes to be nothing but that abstract idea which the general, or sortal (if I may have leave so to call it from sort, as I do general from genus), name stands for.}}
  • (philosophy) Having the character of a
  • * {{quote-journal, 2008, date=January 8, John E. Sarnecki, Sortals for Dummies, Erkenntnis, url=, doi=10.1007/s10670-007-9094-6, volume=69, issue=2, pages=
    • , passage=The possession of sortal concepts is a prerequisite for philosophers like Wiggins or Lowe in determining the nature and extent of our referential capacities. }}

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (philosophy) A type of universal that defines a particular sort of object
  • * {{quote-book, 1974, , Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar, isbn=0416821901, page=135, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=qX8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA135
    • , passage=And central to this notion is the distinction, among semantic types of g -words, between sortals on the one hand and non-sortal general-character-specifiers on the other}}

    Derived terms

    * sortalist * sortalism * sortalize * nonsortal

    See also

    * Sortals in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

    Anagrams

    *