prostrate means lying flat, face-down. It carries an Arena rating of 1688, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, prostrate ranks #783 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #904 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,067 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,444 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
prostrate is pronounced /ˈpɹɒstɹeɪt/.
Why “prostrate” is a great word
Lying stretched out face down on the ground, often as a gesture of submission, reverence, or physical collapse. From Middle English 'prostrat(e)', borrowed from Latin 'prōstrātus', the perfect passive participle of 'prōsternō' ("to throw down, prostrate"), from 'prō-' ("forward") + 'sternere' ("to spread, lay flat"), first attested as a verb in English in the early 15th century. Unlike "recumbent" (which denotes lying in comfort) or "supine" (which specifies lying face upward), prostrate is the posture of abjection and devotion alike. It is the pilgrim's body pressed into cold cathedral stone, the soldier's final fall into the mud, and the exhausted form surrendered to gravity on a bare floor—the self emptied, the ground itself becoming the only horizon left.
Etymology
From Middle English prostrat(e) (“prostrate”, also used as the past participle of prostraten), borrowed from Latin prōstrātus, perfect passive participle of prōsternō (“to prostrate”). Participial usage up until Early Modern English.
adj
- Lying flat, face-down.e.g.“Prostrate fall / Before him reverent, and there confess / Humbly our faults.” — 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished a
- Emotionally devastated.
- Physically incapacitated from environmental exposure or debilitating disease.e.g.“He was prostrate from the extreme heat.”
- Trailing on the ground; procumbent.
- Prostrated.
verb
- To lie flat or face-down.
- To throw oneself down in submission.e.g.“Those who had the privilege of approaching him, had to prostrate themselves before him in profound humility[…]” — 1922, Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 228:
- To cause to lie down, to flatten.e.g.“How many of these mighty pines were to be prostrated under that approaching tempest!” — 1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XIV, page 175:
- To overcome or overpower.e.g.“Why this very minute she's prostrated with grief.” — 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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