prostrate
pronunciation
How to pronounce prostrate in British English:
UK [ˈprɒstreɪt]
How to pronounce prostrate in American English:
US [ˈprɑstreɪt]
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- Verb:
- get into a prostrate position, as in submission
- render helpless or defenseless
- throw down flat, as on the ground
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- Adjective:
- stretched out and lying at full length along the ground
- lying face downward
Word Origin
- prostrate
- prostrate: see strata
- prostrate (adj.)
- mid-14c., "lying face-down" (in submission, worship, etc.), from Latin prostratus, past participle of prosternere "strew in front, throw down," from pro- "forth" (see pro-) + sternere "to spread out," from PIE root *stere- "to spread, extend, stretch out" (see structure (n.)). Figurative use from 1590s. General sense of "laid out, knocked flat" is from 1670s.
- prostrate (v.)
- early 15c., prostraten, "prostrate oneself," from prostrate (adj.). Related: Prostrated; prostrating.
Synonym
Example
- 1. The communist fritz schaper was so beaten that he was prostrate for eight weeks .
- 2. Stems prostrate to ascending or arcuate .
- 3. Stems prostrate or ascending ; leaves linear , green , apex spinose .
- 4. Plants prostrate to ascending ; leaflet blades 1-3 mm wide .
- 5. Pictures of feng jianmei , a 27-year-old from the central province of shaanxi , prostrate on a clinic bed next to her dead seven-month-old fetus ( graphic , horrible ) , is causing outrage in local media .