Petrify

Quick meaning: Petrify is a verb meaning (transitive) To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.

Meaning

(transitive) To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.

More Meanings

1. To produce rigidity akin to stone.
2. To immobilize with fright.
3. (intransitive) To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
4. (intransitive, figurative) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
5. (transitive, figurative) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.

Example Sentences

petrify a genius to a dunce

a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves

Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.

A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.

Word Forms

• petrifies
• petrifying
• petrified

Synonyms for petrify

Depending on context, synonyms include alarm, affright, appall, dismay, fray, frighten.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include lapidify, appal, unpetrify, stonify, fossilize, mortify.

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