Subject to death; not living forever, or extremely serious and deadly.
From Latin 'mortalis,' derived from 'mors' meaning death. The word entered English through Old French and has meant 'subject to death' since at least the 1300s.
The word 'mortal' comes from the Latin root 'mors' (death), which also gives us 'mortuary,' 'mortgage' (literally 'death pledge'), and 'post-mortem'—Latin speakers were so focused on the concept of death that they built half their vocabulary around it!
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