If you are mortified, you feel extremely ashamed, embarrassed, or offended — far past a little awkward. Your face may go hot; you may want to hide. People say it about social mistakes: calling someone by the wrong name, a phone ringing in a quiet hall, a parent telling a childhood story. It is the usual everyday form of this idea; the matching noun mortification sounds stiffer. Mortifying describes the thing that caused the feeling (“a mortifying mistake”). In modern talk it is not about death, though the old root is about dying or killing pride, which is why it is such a heavy word for shame.