Prostration

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Prostration \Pros*tra"tion\, n. [L. prostratio: cf. F.
     prostration.]
     1. The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as,
        the prostration of the body.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. The act of falling down, or of bowing in humility or
        adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but
        usually applied to kneeling or bowing in reverence and
        worship.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              A greater prostration of reason than of body.
                                                    --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. The condition of being prostrate; great depression;
        lowness; dejection; as, a postration of spirits. "A sudden
        prostration of strength." --Arbuthnot.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. (Med.) A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital
        energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Prostration, in its medical use, is analogous to the
           state of a spring lying under such a weight that it is
           incapable of action; while exhaustion is analogous to
           the state of a spring deprived of its elastic powers.
           The word, however, is often used to denote any great
           depression of the vital powers.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  prostration
       n 1: a condition marked by dizziness and nausea and weakness
            caused by depletion of body fluids and electrolytes
            [syn: {heat exhaustion}, {heat prostration}]
       2: abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating
          your body
       3: the act of assuming a prostrate position

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  190 Moby Thesaurus words for "prostration":
     accubation, accumbency, aching heart, adoration, adulation,
     adynamia, agony, agony of mind, anemia, anguish, apple-polishing,
     ass-kissing, atony, backscratching, bale, bend, bending the knee,
     bitterness, blah feeling, bleeding heart, bloodlessness, bob,
     bootlicking, bouleversement, bow, bowing, bowing and scraping,
     breakdown, broken heart, brown-nosing, cachexia, cachexy, care,
     carking care, cave-in, circulatory collapse, co-worship, collapse,
     convulsion, couchancy, cowardice, crack-up, crackup, cringing,
     crouch, crushing, cult, cultism, cultus, curtsy, debasement,
     debilitation, debility, decumbency, deference, deflation,
     dejection, depression, depth of misery, desolation, despair,
     desperation, despondency, devotion, dipping the colors, downfall,
     draining, duck, dulia, dullness, enervation, etiolation,
     exhaustedness, exhaustion, extremity, faintness, fall, fatigue,
     fawnery, fawning, feebleness, flabbiness, flaccidity, flunkyism,
     footlicking, genuflection, grief, groveling, handshaking,
     heartache, heartfelt grief, heartgrief, heavy heart, homage,
     humiliation, hyperdulia, idolatry, implosion, impotence,
     inclination, infelicity, ingratiation, insinuation, kneeling,
     kowtow, kowtowing, lamentation, languishment, languor, lassitude,
     latria, listlessness, loll, lounging, lowness, lying, lying down,
     making a leg, mealymouthedness, melancholia, melancholy, misery,
     nervous breakdown, nervous exhaustion, nervous prostration,
     neurasthenia, nod, obeisance, obsequiousness, overthrow, overturn,
     paralysis, parasitism, pining, presenting arms, proneness,
     reclination, reclining, recumbency, repose, respect, reverence,
     sabotage, sadness, salaam, salutation, salute, scrape, servility,
     shortness, sluggishness, softness, sorrow, sorrowing, sponging,
     sprawl, squat, squatness, squattiness, standing at attention,
     stoop, strengthlessness, stumpiness, subjacency, submission,
     submissiveness, subversion, suicidal despair, supination,
     supineness, sycophancy, timeserving, toadeating, toadying,
     toadyism, transcendent wonder, truckling, tufthunting, unhappiness,
     upheaval, upset, veneration, weakliness, weakness, weariness, woe,
     woefulness, worship, worshiping, wretchedness