Adjacent Words

Prostration definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PROSTRA'TION, n. The act of throwing down or laying flat; as the prostration of the body, of trees or of corn.
1. The act of falling down, or the act of bowing in humility or adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but it is now used for kneeling or bowing in reverence and worship.
2. Great depression; dejection; as a prostration of spirits.
3. Great loss of natural strength and vigor; that state of the body in disease in which the system is passive and requires powerful stimulants to excite it into action.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an abrupt failure of function or complete physical exhaustion; "the commander's prostration demoralized his men" [syn: collapse, prostration]
2: abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body
3: the act of assuming a prostrate position

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 14th century 1. a. the act of assuming a prostrate position b. the state of being in a prostrate position ; abasement 2. a. complete physical or mental exhaustion ; collapse b. the process of being made powerless or the condition of powerlessness <the country suffered economic prostration after the war>

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Prostration Pros*tra"tion, n. [L. prostratio: cf. F. prostration.] 1. The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as, the prostration of the body. 2. The act of falling down, or of bowing in humility or adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but usually applied to kneeling or bowing in reverence and worship. A greater prostration of reason than of body. --Shak. 3. The condition of being prostrate; great depression; lowness; dejection; as, a postration of spirits. ``A sudden prostration of strength.'' --Arbuthnot. 4. (Med.) A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor. Note: Prostration, in its medical use, is analogous to the state of a spring lying under such a weight that it is incapable of action; while exhaustion is analogous to the state of a spring deprived of its elastic powers. The word, however, is often used to denote any great depression of the vital powers.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Overthrow, destruction, demolition. 2. Exhaustion, depression, dejection.

Moby Thesaurus

accubation, accumbency, aching heart, adoration, adulation, adynamia, agony, agony of mind, anemia, anguish, apple-polishing, ass-kissing, atony, backscratching, bale, bend, bending the knee, bitterness, blah feeling, bleeding heart, bloodlessness, bob, bootlicking, bouleversement, bow, bowing, bowing and scraping, breakdown, broken heart, brown-nosing, cachexia, cachexy, care, carking care, cave-in, circulatory collapse, co-worship, collapse, convulsion, couchancy, cowardice, crack-up, crackup, cringing, crouch, crushing, cult, cultism, cultus, curtsy, debasement, debilitation, debility, decumbency, deference, deflation, dejection, depression, depth of misery, desolation, despair, desperation, despondency, devotion, dipping the colors, downfall, draining, duck, dulia, dullness, enervation, etiolation, exhaustedness, exhaustion, extremity, faintness, fall, fatigue, fawnery, fawning, feebleness, flabbiness, flaccidity, flunkyism, footlicking, genuflection, grief, groveling, handshaking, heartache, heartfelt grief, heartgrief, heavy heart, homage, humiliation, hyperdulia, idolatry, implosion, impotence, inclination, infelicity, ingratiation, insinuation, kneeling, kowtow, kowtowing, lamentation, languishment, languor, lassitude, latria, listlessness, loll, lounging, lowness, lying, lying down, making a leg, mealymouthedness, melancholia, melancholy, misery, nervous breakdown, nervous exhaustion, nervous prostration, neurasthenia, nod, obeisance, obsequiousness, overthrow, overturn, paralysis, parasitism, pining, presenting arms, proneness, reclination, reclining, recumbency, repose, respect, reverence, sabotage, sadness, salaam, salutation, salute, scrape, servility, shortness, sluggishness, softness, sorrow, sorrowing, sponging, sprawl, squat, squatness, squattiness, standing at attention, stoop, strengthlessness, stumpiness, subjacency, submission, submissiveness, subversion, suicidal despair, supination, supineness, sycophancy, timeserving, toadeating, toadying, toadyism, transcendent wonder, truckling, tufthunting, unhappiness, upheaval, upset, veneration, weakliness, weakness, weariness, woe, woefulness, worship, worshiping, wretchedness