Then Phœbus gathered up his steeds that yet for fear had run
Like flaighted fiends, and in his mood without respect begun
To beat his whipstock on their pates, and lash them on their sides.
Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. ii.
Morose. It is very curious that while the classical ‘mōrosus’ expressed one given overmuch to his own manners, habits, ways (mores), very nearly the Greek αὐθέκαστος, the medieval ‘mŏrosus’ was commonly connected with ‘mora,’ a delay;[20] and in treatises of Christian ethics was the technical word to express the sin of delaying upon impure, wanton, or, as in the quotation from South, malignant thoughts, instead of rejecting them on the instant. See, for instance, Gerson, Opp., vol. i. p. 377, for evidence constantly recurring of its connexion for him with ‘mora.’ So long as the scholastic theology exerted more or less influence on our own, ‘morose’ was often employed in this sense; which, however, it has since entirely foregone. I owe the third quotation given below to Todd, who is so entirely unaware of this history of ‘morose,’ that he explains it there as ungovernable!
Here are forbidden all wanton words, and all morose delighting in venereous thoughts, all rolling and tossing such things in our minds.—Bishop Taylor, Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, c. 4, § 1.
All morose thoughts, that is, delaying, dwelling, or insisting on such thoughts, fancying of such unclean matters with delectation.—Hammond, Practical Catechism, b. ii. § 6.
In this [the seventh] commandment are forbidden all that feed this sin [adultery], or are incentives to it, as luxurious diet, inflaming wines, an idle life, morose thoughts, that dwell in the fancy with delight.—Nicholson, Exposition of the Catechism, 1662, p. 123.
For we must know that it is the morose dwelling of the thoughts upon an injury, a long and sullen meditation upon a wrong, that incorporates and rivets it into the mind.—South, Sermons, vol. x. p. 278.
Mortal. We speak still of a ‘mortal’ sin or a ‘mortal’ wound, but the active sense has nearly departed from the word, as the passive has altogether departed from ‘deadly,’ which see.