Word Confusion: Prostate versus Prostrate

Plural for the noun: prostates

Third person present verb: prostrates
Past tense or past participle: prostrated
Gerund or present participle: prostrating

Noun:
An organ that surrounds the urethra of males at the base of the bladder, comprising a muscular portion, which controls the release of urine, and a glandular portion, which secretes an alkaline fluid that makes up part of the semen and enhances the motility and fertility of sperm

• Prostate gland

Lying face down on the ground, as in token of humility, submission, or adoration

• [Predic.] Completely overcome or helpless, especially with illness, distress, or exhaustion

Submissive

Utterly dejected or depressed

• Disconsolate

[Botany] Growing along the ground

Verb, transitive:
[prostrate oneself] Lay oneself flat on the ground face downward, especially in reverence, humility, or submission

[Of distress, exhaustion, or illness] Reduce (someone) to extreme physical weakness

To throw down level with the ground

To overthrow, overcome, or reduce to helplessness

Various prostate diseases are common in old intact dogs.

A particular sex hormone is a necessary component in normal prostate function.

Noun:
His prostate is acting up.

Joe learned that his prostate is enlarged.

There are four ways to test one’s prostate.

She lay prostrate before him.

His wife was prostrate with shock that his prostate cancer had come back.

Mats of prostrate herbs can be used to break up expanses of soil.

Verb, transitive:
She prostrated herself on the bare floor of the church.

She was so prostrated by a migraine that she could scarcely get up the stairs.

It was a country left prostrate by natural disasters.

Drenched in sweat, they are prostrated by fatigue, “sucking in hot air like bellows and breathless in the suffocating heat”.

1. 1640–50 from the New Latin prostata, which is from the Greek prostátēs, meaning one standing before, from pro (before) + statos (standing).
2. First recorded in 1830–40.