means A feeling of deep shame, embarrassment, or humiliation — the sting of wounded pride; (in older religious use) the deliberate subduing of bodily desires through self-discipline or pain.

from From Latin mortificare, "to put to death," stitched together from mors, mortis ("death") and facere ("to make") — the same mors that gives us mortal and mortuary. It entered English through religion, where to mortify the flesh meant to kill off your sinful appetites by fasting or penance. From that literal deadening, the word drifted into a smaller, sharper death — the way a humiliating moment makes a little part of you wish to perish on the spot.