fossilize
verbUK /ˈfɒs.ɪl.aɪz/
Etymology From fossil + -ize.
1
To make into a fossil.
- Most of the booths had been scooped clean by the scalpel-sharp corner of the glacier in the crash. Three remained. Two of them were punctured and, inside, the once-human occupants had been fossilized into the walls by centuries upon centuries of patient ice.1989, Grant Naylor, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers:
2
To become a fossil.
3
Broadly, Figuratively To become inflexible or outmoded.
- I was getting fossilised myself, but of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
4
Broadly, Figuratively To make antiquated, rigid, or fixed; to deaden.
- Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head / Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth.1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Eighth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC:
- I'll meet you again Blanketed in soil Fossilized in photographs2013, Days N' Daze, “Blue Jays”, in Rogue Taxidermy:
- Derived terms
- fossilizable, fossilizer
- Related terms
- fossilization