Mortifier

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Someone who causes others to feel shame or embarrassment through their actions or words
2. An individual who brings about a sense of humiliation or discomfort in others
3. A person causing mortification by making others feel ashamed or humiliated

Etymology: "Mortifier" is simply "mortify" with the agent suffix "-er," meaning one who performs the action. The verb "mortify" comes from Latin "mortificare," made of "mors" (death) and "facere" (to make), so the literal sense is "to make dead." English first used "mortify" to describe the death of bodily tissue, and the mental sense of shaming someone came later. The noun shares its path with the French "mortifieur," which follows the same pattern. The word's meaning has moved a long way from death. Someone who mortifies another is now a person who humiliates or shames them, a sense that comes from the verb's figurative use of wounding someone's pride, which is itself a metaphor carried over from the older bodily sense.

Synonyms: humiliator, shamer