Library / English Dictionary

PROSTRATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Stretched out and lying at full length along the ground

Example:

found himself lying flat on the floor

Synonyms:

flat; prostrate

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

unerect (not upright in position or posture)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lying face downward

Synonyms:

prone; prostrate

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

unerect (not upright in position or posture)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Render helpless or defenseless

Example:

They prostrated the enemy

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "prostrate" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

prostration (abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Throw down flat, as on the ground

Example:

She prostrated herself with frustration

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "prostrate" is one way to...):

throw (propel through the air)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

prostration (the act of assuming a prostrate position)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Get into a prostrate position, as in submission

Synonyms:

bow down; prostrate

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "prostrate" is one way to...):

lie; lie down (assume a reclining position)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

prostration (the act of assuming a prostrate position)

prostration (abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I was forced to wait above an hour for the tide; and then observing the wind very fortunately bearing toward the island to which I intended to steer my course, I took a second leave of my master: but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the honour to raise it gently to my mouth.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Leach could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And yet his first action, when the door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin hearth-rug.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,—there was no other help at hand to summon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There, prostrate upon their faces, lay the little red figures of the four surviving Indians, trembling with fear of us and yet imploring our protection.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Besides, he added, not unkindly, as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the prostrate man, it is better than to fall before some ignoble foe.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here, she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I made my acknowledgements by prostrating myself at his majesty’s feet: but he commanded me to rise; and after many gracious expressions, which, to avoid the censure of vanity, I shall not repeat, he added, that he hoped I should prove a useful servant, and well deserve all the favours he had already conferred upon me, or might do for the future.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Late at night I heard him consoling Dr. Huxtable, prostrated by the tragedy of his master’s death, and later still he entered my room as alert and vigorous as he had been when he started in the morning.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate man.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)