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/prɑstrˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Prostration n.

The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as, the prostration of the body.

The act of falling down, or of bowing in humility or adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but usually applied to kneeling or bowing in reverence and worship. "A greater prostration of reason than of body."

The condition of being prostrate; great depression; lowness; dejection; as, a postration of spirits. "A sudden prostration of strength."

(Med.) A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor. Note: Prostration, in its medical use, is analogous to the state of a spring lying under such a weight that it is incapable of action; while exhaustion is analogous to the state of a spring deprived of its elastic powers. The word, however, is often used to denote any great depression of the vital powers.

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Etymology of 'Prostration'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prostration" Quotes from Famous Books

... bowed his head: Within the lovely town he sped Which Bali's royal will had swayed, Where thousand Vanar chiefs arrayed Gathered in order round their king, And led him on with welcoming. Low on the earth the lesser crowd Fell in prostration as they bowed. Sugriva looked with grateful eyes, Spake to them all and bade them rise. Then through the royal bowers he strode Wherein the monarch's wives abode. Soon from the inner chambers came The Vanar of exalted fame; And joyful friends drew near and ...

— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... with the lazy stop-and-rest methods of too many labourers at home. It is a fierce but steady and continuous onslaught upon the woods. Everything must fall before the axe, and everything does fall. Once I was watching the prostration of a Worcestershire oak. It was a tree that might have had some twelve feet of girth. Three men and a boy were employed at it, armed with ropes and pulleys, wedges, saws, and all sorts of implements, besides axes; and it was two days and a half before they got the tree to earth. If a single ...

— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... never entirely himself again. The immediate effect of his bereavement was complete physical and mental prostration, from which he recovered only with difficulty. His subsequent literary work deserves scarcely more than mere mention. His Eureka, an ambitious treatise, the immortality of which he confidently predicted, was a disappointment and failure. He tried lecturing, but with only moderate success. His ...

— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... shews so profound an impression of the misery he had undergone, and of the hopelessness of the situation in which he is placed,—or still more the shriek of agony in Orestes, when he finds the horrors of madness again assailing him, and when, in that utter prostration of soul which the belief of inevitable and merciless destiny alone could produce in his mind, he abandons himself in dark despair to the misery which seems to close ...

— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... Welch's Court, he recollected Richard's unaccountable dejection; he had had the air of a person meditating some momentous step,—the pallor, the set face, and the introspective eyes. Then came the murder, and Richard's complete prostration. Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had noted it superficially at the time, but now he recalled the young man's inordinate sorrow, and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his present immobile serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart had suddenly ossified, and was no longer capable of ...

— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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