mortar
pronunciation
How to pronounce mortar in British English:
UK [ˈmɔ:tə(r)]
How to pronounce mortar in American English:
US [ˈmɔrtə(r)]
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- Noun:
- a muzzle-loading high-angle gun with a short barrel that fires shells at high elevations for a short range
- used as a bond in masonry or for covering a wall
- a bowl-shaped vessel in which substances can be ground and mixed with a pestle
-
- Verb:
- plaster with mortar
Word Origin
- mortar
- mortar: [13] Latin mortārium, a word of unknown origin, denoted both a ‘bowl for grinding’ and, by extension, the ‘substance made in such a bowl’. These twin meanings survived through Anglo-Norman morter into modern English mortar as the ‘bowl used with a pestle’ and a ‘building mixture of cement, sand, and water’. The shape of the former led in the 17th century to the word’s application to a ‘short cannon’. The use of mortarboard for a ‘square flat academic cap’ dates from the mid-19th century.
- mortar (n.1)
- "mixture of cement," late 13c., from Old French mortier "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing" (13c.), from Latin mortarium "mortar," also "crushed drugs," probably the same word as mortarium "bowl for mixing or pounding" (see mortar (n.2)). Dutch mortel, German Mörtel are from Latin or French.
- mortar (n.2)
- "bowl for pounding," c. 1300, from Old French mortier "bowl; builder's mortar," from Latin mortarium "bowl for mixing or pounding," also "material prepared in it," of unknown origin and impossible now to determine which sense was original (Watkins says probably from PIE root *mer- "to rub away, harm;" see morbid). Late Old English had mortere, from the same Latin source, which might also be a source of the modern word. German Mörser also is from Latin.
- mortar (n.3)
- "short cannon" fired at a high angle and meant to secure a vertical fall of the projectile, 1550s, originally mortar-piece, from Middle French mortier "short cannon," in Old French, "bowl for mixing or pounding" (see mortar (n.2)). So called for its shape.
Example
- 1. Remove the hinges and mount mortar launchers inside .
- 2. By late in the afternoon they could hear distant mortar shells slamming into the desert .
- 3. Even so , only yesterday a mortar crew attacked a shiite gathering in baghdad , wounding five .
- 4. It 's odd that hong kongers should be so in love with breezeblocks and mortar .
- 5. A mortar and pestle worked better than the desktop , and a coffee grinder worked best of all for making good bee paste .