mortar

UK/ˈmɔːtə/US/ˈmoɹtɚ/

nounB2+3 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,543 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: mortars

Mortar is the grey paste that holds bricks together. You can see the lines of it in any wall, a finger thick, gone hard and pale — sand, cement and water, mixed in a bucket and thrown on with a trowel.

Two more mortars. In a kitchen a mortar is the heavy stone bowl you crush garlic and peppercorns in, and the club-shaped stick you crush them with is the pestle; the pair is always mortar and pestle, in that order. In an army a mortar is a short fat tube that lobs a shell high over a wall instead of firing it flat. A bricks-and-mortar shop is one with a street door, as against a website. Watch the grammar: the building stuff is uncountable, so you mix mortar and buy a bag of mortar and never have two mortars, while the bowl and the gun count normally.

Definitions of mortar

1nounrockThe paste of sand, cement and water that binds bricks and stones together.B2+~44%
Achim Hering · Public domain
“The mortar between the old bricks had crumbled to dust.”
synonyms: cement
2nounmortarA heavy bowl in which spices and other hard things are crushed with a pestle.B2+~13%
“She ground the peppercorns in a stone mortar.”
- Said"Use the mortar for the spices; I find the grinder heats them up."
- WrittenThe stone mortars had hollows worn in them by three generations of garlic.
- UsedGrind in the mortar with a circular motion, not a hammering one.
- ContrastA mortar, not a bowl. A bowl is for mixing and serving; a mortar is heavy and made to be pounded in. bowl →
- Not thisThe mortar between bricks is another word. This mortar sits on the kitchen shelf.
- SimplyPut the pepper in the mortar. Make it small.
Patterna mortar and pestle · grind sth in a mortar · a stone / granite mortar
3nounshortA short gun that throws a shell high into the air rather than straight ahead.C1~43%
“The shelling came from a mortar on the far hill.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 154 sentences found in the wild and placed 143 of them on a sense (11 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

MOR-tar → a POTTER

A potter kneels at a half-built wall with a heavy stone bowl under one arm. She scoops grey mud out of the bowl and slaps it flat between two bricks, and the wall grows another row.

hooks ontopotter

Phrases it lives in

mortar and pestle — the crushing bowl and its stick, named and sold as a pair
bricks and mortar — a real building — a shop with a street door, rather than a website

Also practised as

Where it comes from

The bowl and the brick paste are not two words that happen to look alike. Both are Middle English morter, from Old French mortier, from Latin mortārium — one word that has held down both jobs the whole way. English also keeps the bare Latin form, mortarium, as its doublet.

Latin
mortārium
Old French
mortier
Middle English
morter
English, today
mortar

From Middle English morter, from Old French mortier, from Latin mortārium. a doublet of mortarium.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen

Practise this word

mortar in the wild

In its broadest sense, mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft clay, as those used between bricks, as well as cement mortar.
Mortar (masonry)
The word "mortar" comes from the Old French word mortier, "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing.".
Mortar (masonry)
The Hedgehog (also known as an Anti-Submarine Projector) was a forward-throwing anti-submarine mortar that was used primarily during the Second World War.
Hedgehog (weapon)
The 3-inch trench mortar was a smooth-bore, muzzle-loading weapon for high angles of fire.
Stokes mortar
Although it was called a 3-inch mortar, its bore was actually 3.2 inches or 81 mm.
Stokes mortar

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of mortar

1nounrockThe paste of sand, cement and water that binds bricks and stones together.B2+~44%

“The mortar between the old bricks had crumbled to dust.”

synonyms: cement

2nounmortarA heavy bowl in which spices and other hard things are crushed with a pestle.B2+~13%

“She ground the peppercorns in a stone mortar.”

Said"Use the mortar for the spices; I find the grinder heats them up."
WrittenThe stone mortars had hollows worn in them by three generations of garlic.
UsedGrind in the mortar with a circular motion, not a hammering one.
ContrastA mortar, not a bowl. A bowl is for mixing and serving; a mortar is heavy and made to be pounded in. bowl →
Not thisThe mortar between bricks is another word. This mortar sits on the kitchen shelf.
SimplyPut the pepper in the mortar. Make it small.

Patterna mortar and pestle · grind sth in a mortar · a stone / granite mortar

3nounshortA short gun that throws a shell high into the air rather than straight ahead.C1~43%

“The shelling came from a mortar on the far hill.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 154 sentences found in the wild and placed 143 of them on a sense (11 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.