What does "mortality" mean?

Additional senses

1. 2.Those who are, or that which is, mortal; the human cace; humanity; human nature. Take these tears, mortality's relief. Pope.
2. 3.Death; destruction. Shak.
3. 4.The whole sum or number of deaths in a given time or a given community; also, the proportion of deaths to population, or to a specific number of the population; death rate; as, a time of great, or low, mortality; the mortality among the settlers was alarming. Bill of mortality. See under Bill. -- Law of mortality, a mathematical relation between the numbers living at different ages, so that from a given large number of persons alive at one age, it can be computed what number are likely to survive a given number of years. -- Table of mortality, a table exhibiting the average relative number of persons who survive, or who have died, at the end of each year of life, out of a given number supposed to have been born at the same time.