Definition of "petrify"

petrify

/ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/

verb
third-person singular simple present petrifies, present participle petrifying, simple past and past participle petrified
1. (transitive) To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
  Quotations
  a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves
  1799, Richard Kirwan, Geological Essays
2. To produce rigidity akin to stone.
3. To immobilize with fright.
4. (intransitive) To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
5. (intransitive, figurative) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
  Quotations
  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, […], page 233
6. (transitive, figurative) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
  Quotations
  petrify a genius to a dunce
  1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin, London: […] A. Dodd
  A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.
  1874, George Eliot, letter to Mrs. Ponsonby

Definition of "petrify"

petrify

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations