PROSTRATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does prostration mean? 

• PROSTRATION (noun)
  The noun PROSTRATION has 3 senses:

1. an abrupt failure of function or complete physical exhaustion

2. abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body

3. the act of assuming a prostrate position

  Familiarity information: PROSTRATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROSTRATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An abrupt failure of function or complete physical exhaustion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

collapse; prostration

Context example:

the commander's prostration demoralized his men

Hypernyms ("prostration" is a kind of...):

illness; malady; sickness; unwellness (impairment of normal physiological function affecting part or all of an organism)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "prostration"):

breakdown; crack-up (a mental or physical breakdown)

shock ((pathology) bodily collapse or near collapse caused by inadequate oxygen delivery to the cells; characterized by reduced cardiac output and rapid heartbeat and circulatory insufficiency and pallor)

heat hyperpyrexia; heatstroke (collapse caused by exposure to excessive heat)

algidity (prostration characterized by cold and clammy skin and low blood pressure)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("prostration" is a kind of...):

compliance; submission (the act of submitting; usually surrendering power to another)

Derivation:

prostrate (render helpless or defenseless)

prostrate (get into a prostrate position, as in submission)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of assuming a prostrate position

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("prostration" is a kind of...):

motility; motion; move; movement (a change of position that does not entail a change of location)

Derivation:

prostrate (throw down flat, as on the ground)

prostrate (get into a prostrate position, as in submission)

 Context examples 

Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It is marked by inflammation of the nasal mucosa, pharynx, and conjunctiva; headache; myalgia; often fever, chills, and prostration; and occasionally involvement of the myocardium or central nervous system.

(Influenza, NCI Thesaurus)

The Duke is greatly agitated, and, as to me, you have seen yourselves the state of nervous prostration to which the suspense and the responsibility have reduced me.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense of desolation—this total prostration of hope.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Gradually, as time passed, his fears appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a fresh event reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he now lies.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had outmanœuvred at every point the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous prostration.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)