mortar
Plural: mortars
Noun
- a muzzle-loading high-angle gun with a short barrel that fires shells at high elevations for a short range
- used as a bond in masonry or for covering a wall
- a bowl-shaped vessel in which substances can be ground and mixed with a pestle
- A mixture of lime or cement, sand and water used for bonding building blocks.
- A hollow vessel used to pound, crush, rub, grind or mix ingredients with a pestle.
- A short, heavy, large-bore cannon designed for indirect fire at very steep trajectories.
- A relatively lightweight, often portable indirect fire weapon which transmits recoil to a base plate and is designed to lob explosive shells at very steep trajectories.
- In paper milling, a trough in which material is hammered.
Verb
Verb Forms: mortared, mortaring, mortars
- To secure or bind with mortar, a type of cement.
- plaster with mortar
- "mortar the wall"
- To use mortar or plaster to join two things together.
- To pound in a mortar.
- To fire a mortar (weapon).
- To attack (someone or something) using a mortar (weapon).
Examples
- She tried to MORTAR her Scrabble tiles into place, but the board simply wouldn’t cooperate.
- The insurgents snuck up close and mortared the base last night.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English morter, from Old French mortier, from Latin mortārium. Doublet of mortarium.
Synonyms
howitzer, trench mortar, mortar and pestle, pestle and mortar
Scrabble Score: 8
mortar: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordmortar: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
mortar: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary