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Mortal vs Transitory - What's the difference?

mortal | transitory | Synonyms |

As adjectives the difference between mortal and transitory

is that mortal is susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal while transitory is lasting only a short time; temporary.

As a noun mortal

is a human; someone susceptible to death.

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

    transitory

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Lasting only a short time; temporary.
  • * 1704 , , Section I - The Introduction,
    • Secondly, that the materials being very transitory , have suffered much from inclemencies of air, especially in these north-west regions.
  • * 1839 , , Chapter 38,
    • Quite unconscious of the demonstrations of their amorous neighbour, or their effects upon the susceptible bosom of her mama, Kate Nickleby had, by this time, begun to enjoy a settled feeling of tranquillity and happiness, to which, even in occasional and transitory glimpses, she had long been a stranger.
  • * 1922 , , Book Three, Chapter II: A Matter of Aesthetics,
    • For a moment she paused by the taxi-stand and watched them--wondering that but a few years before she had been of their number, ever setting out for a radiant Somewhere, always just about to have that ultimate passionate adventure for which the girls' cloaks were delicate and beautifully furred, for which their cheeks were painted and their hearts higher than the transitory dome of pleasure that would engulf them, coiffure, cloak, and all.
  • (legal, of an action) That may be brought in any county; opposed to local .
    • (Blackstone)
    (Bouvier)

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Related terms

    * transient