See Also: Mortar(medicine)
mortar(1)(dictionary)
mortar(2)(dictionary)
mortar(encyclopedia)
mortar(dictionary)
mortar kidney(medicine)
Bricks and Mortar(money)

mortar(1) (iou)



mortar noun1 & verb1. LOE.
[Partly from Anglo-Norman morter, Old & mod. French mortier from Latin MORTARIUM (to which the English spelling was finally assim.), partly from Low German. Cf. MORTAR noun2 & verb2.]
A. noun.
A vessel of marble, brass, or other hard material, with a cup-shaped cavity in which ingredients for pharmacy, cookery, etc., are pounded with a pestle (cf. PESTLE noun 2 for its symbolic use). LOE.
E. Rutherford Finely powdered in an agate mortar. P. Matthiessen Women..pound grain in stone mortars.
A weight or yoke, esp. of wood, worn about the neck as an instrument of punishment. obsolete exc. Hist. LME.
transf.
a. A cavity in which to pound or grind something. rare. LME.
b. Any of various mechanical pounding or grinding devices. M18.
A bowl of wax or oil with a floating wick, used esp. as a night-light. Later also, a kind of thick candle. obsolete exc. Hist. LME.
A short piece of artillery with a large bore and trunnions on the breech, for firing missiles at high angles. Formerly also mortar piece. M16.
E. Blunden A long-range trench mortar..fired with weary iteration and accurate inaccuracy. B. England A..red star shell exploded in the sky. A mortar had been fired.
b. transf. Any of various devices for firing a lifeline, a firework, etc. M17.
Comb.: mortar-bed (a) the part of a gun-carriage on which the gun rests; (b) the bed on which the ore is crushed in a stamp-mill; mortar-piece: see sense 3 above.
b. verb trans. Direct mortar fire on to; bombard with mortar bombs. E20.
A. Judd You have been mortared...Your platoon is decimated.