amort

From Middle French à la mort (“to the death”) reinterpreted as all amort.

amort

1. (archaic, literary) As if dead; depressed

   Synonyms: lifeless, spiritless, dejected

   • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene 3,

     How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

   • 1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 3-5,

     How nowe fellowe Franticke, what all a mort? Doth this sadnes become thy madnes?

   • 1737, Susanna Centlivre, The Perjur’d Husband, London: W. Feales, Act IV, Scene 2, p. 56,

     What, all amort, Signior, no Courage left?

   • 1820, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: Taylor & Hessey, stanza VIII, p. 87,

     The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs

     Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort

     Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;

     ’Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,

     Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,

     Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,

     And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

   • 1890, Francis Saltus Saltus, “The Harem” in Shadows and Ideals, Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, p. 338,

     Here repose houris, dreamlike fair;

     Eyes half amort by amorous care;

     Marvels of flesh, wonders of hair!

• Morta, morat, torma