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)]
• IPA^(key): (Received Pronunciation) /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 or willingly accepts challenging and exposing iniquity done to oneself for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after red 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.

   • 1982, J. G. Thirlwell, “J.Q. Murder”, in Ache, performed by You've Got Foetus on Your Breath:

     J.Q. Murder wears sandpaper suits
     Broken glass in pocket, barbed wire boots
     Not because he's mean, but because he's a martyr
     He makes Jackie Collins look like Jean-Paul Sartre

4. (derogatory) Someone who exaggerate their pain and suffering in order to gain sympathy.

   You have a great life! Stop trying to play the martyr!

• apostate
• confessor

• shaheed, shahid (martyr in Arabic, carrying the same etymological root of “witness”)

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.
   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr you.
     This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
     Whiles that Lavinia ’tween her stumps doth hold
     The basin that receives your guilty blood.

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

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

• martyrize

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

• martyrdom

• “martyr” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “martyr” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

Inherited 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 Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈmar.tyr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈmar.t̪ir]

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 Galician-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
   • late 10th century, Ælfric, Lives of Saints

     Þā sē hālga martyr mid þām Hālgan Gāst āfylled smearcode mid mūþe and tō þām mānfullan cwæþ "Ūs ġedafenaþ tō offriġenne þām undēadlīċum gode."

     Then the holy martyr, filled with the Holy Spirit, smiled with his mouth and to the evil man said "It benefits us to sacrifice to the immortal God."

Strong a-stem:

• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “martyr”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second 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

• martyr in Svensk ordbok.
• martyr in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)