martyr

From Middle English martir, from Old English martyr, itself a borrowing from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈmɐːtə(ɹ)/, [ˈmɐːtə(ɹ)], [ˈmɐːɾə(ɹ)]
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑːtə(ɹ)/[1]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑɹ.tɚ/, [ˈmɑɹ.ɾɚ][1]
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tə(ɹ)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mar‧tyr

martyr (plural martyrs)

1. One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom.

   Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr.

2. (by extension) One who sacrifices their life, station, or something of great personal value, for the sake of principle or to sustain a cause.
3. (with a prepositional phrase of cause) One who suffers greatly and/or constantly, even involuntarily.

   Stan is a martyr to arthritis, Chris a martyr to Stan's endless moaning about it.

   • 1937, AJ Cronin, The Citadel:

     He'd been a martyr to asthma all his life.

• apostate
• confessor

• shaheed, shahid (a martyr for Islam)

martyr (third-person singular simple present martyrs, present participle martyring, simple past and past participle martyred)

1. (transitive) To make someone into a martyr by putting them to death for adhering to, or acting in accordance with, some belief, especially religious; to sacrifice on account of faith or profession.
2. (transitive) To persecute.

   Some religious and other minorities were martyred until extinction.

3. (transitive) To torment; to torture.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, OCLC 932900760, stanza 2, page 94:

     […] The louely Amoret,​whoſe gentle hart
     Thou martyreſt with ſorow and with ſmart, […]

• martyrize

• martyrer

From Old Danish martir. Borrowed via Ecclesiastical Latin martyr from Ancient Greek μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈmɑːˌtˢyɐ̯ˀ]

martyr c (singular definite martyren, plural indefinite martyrer)

1. martyr

• “martyr” in Den Danske Ordbog

From Old French martire, borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

• IPA^(key): /maʁ.tiʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

martyr m (plural martyrs, feminine martyre)

1. martyr

• martyre

• “martyr”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmar.tyr/, [ˈmärt̪ʏr]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmar.tir/, [ˈmärt̪ir]

martyr m or f (genitive martyris); third declension

1. (Ecclesiastical Latin) martyr, especially a Christian martyr

Third-declension noun.

• martyrium

• → Proto-Brythonic: *merθɨr (see there for further descendants)
• → Danish: martyr
• → Dutch: martelaar
• → Estonian: märter
• → Finnish: marttyyri
• → Old French: martire
  • French: martyr
  • → Middle English: martir
    • Scots: mairtyr
    • English: martyr
      • → Maori: matira
  • Norman: martyr
• → German: Märtyrer
• → Hungarian: mártír
• → Old Irish: martar
• Old Italian: martore
• → Italian: martire
• Lombard: màrtul
• Neapolitan: marture
• → Norwegian: martyr
• → Old Occitan:
  • Catalan: màrtir
  • Occitan: martir
• → Old Portuguese:
  • Galician: mártir
  • Portuguese: mártir
• Romanian: martor
• Sardinian: màrturu
• Sicilian: màrtiri
• → Scottish Gaelic: martair
• → Spanish: mártir
  • → Tagalog: martir
• → Swedish: martyr

• “martyr”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• martyr in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

From Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

martyr m (plural martyrs)

1. (religion) martyr

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

martyr m (definite singular martyren, indefinite plural martyrer, definite plural martyrene)

1. martyr

• martre
• martyrdød
• martyrium

• “martyr” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

martyr m (definite singular martyren, indefinite plural martyrar, definite plural martyrane)

1. martyr

• martyrdød
• martyrium

• “martyr” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• martyre, martir

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

martyr m

1. martyr

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898), “martyr”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from Ancient Greek μάρτυρ (mártur), later form of μάρτυς (mártus, “witness”).

• Rhymes: -yːr

martyr c

1. martyr

• martyrskap