petrify
verbUS /ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/
Etymology From Middle French pétrifier, from Medieval Latin petrificāre, from Latin petra (“rock”), from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”) + -ficāre, from facere (“do, make”), equivalent to petro- + -ify.
1
To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
- a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves1799, Richard Kirwan, Geological Essays:
2
To produce rigidity akin to stone.
3
To immobilize with fright.
4
To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
5
Figuratively To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
- Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis:
- Hopes, feelings, and passion, petrify one after another; the crust of experience soon hardens over the hidden past; and who, looking on the levelled and subdued exterior, could dream of the wreck and ravage that lies below?1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Result”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 233:
6
Figuratively To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
- petrify a genius to a dunce1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC:
- A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.1874, George Eliot, letter to Mrs. Ponsonby:
- Derived terms
- petrifiable, petrifier, unpetrify
- Related terms
- petrifaction, calcify, mineralize, ossify, permineralize