About The Word Petrify

Bay Area Crosswords

Learn about the word Petrify to help solve your crossword puzzle. Discover Petrify definitions and meaning, origins, synonyms, related terms and more at the free Crossword Dictionary.

Petrify

Petrify Meaning & Definition
Petrify Definition And Meaning

What's The Definition Of Petrify?

[v] cause to become stone-like or stiff or dazed and stunned; "The horror petrified his feelings"; "Fear petrified her thinking"
[v] make rigid and set into a conventional pattern; "rigidify the training schedule"; "ossified teaching methods"; "slogans petrify our thinking"
[v] change into stone; "the wood petrified with time"

Synonyms | Synonyms for Petrify: lapidify | ossify | rigidify

Related Terms | Find terms related to Petrify: alarm | amaze | anneal | appall | astonish | astound | awe | awestrike | bedaze | bedazzle | bemuse | benumb | bewilder | boggle | bowl down | bowl over | calcify | callous | case harden | confound | cornify | crystallize | daze | dazzle | disconcert | dismay | dumbfound | dumbfounder | firm | flabbergast | fossilize | freeze | frighten | harden | horrify | indurate | lapidify | lithify | numb | ossify | overwhelm | paralyze | perplex | scare | scare stiff | scare to death | shock | stagger | startle | steel | strike dead | strike dumb | strike terror into | strike with wonder | stun | stupefy | surprise | temper | terrify | toughen | turn to stone | vitrify

See Also | blunt | deaden | fossilise | fossilize | stiffen

Petrify In Webster's Dictionary

\Pet"ri*fy\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Petrified}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Petrifying}.] [L. petra rock, Gr. ? (akin to ? a stone) + -fy: cf. F. p['e]trifier. Cf. {Parrot}, {Petrel}, {Pier}.] 1. To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone or stony substance. A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves. --Kirwan. 2. To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young. ``Petrifying accuracy.'' --Sir W. Scott. And petrify a genius to a dunce. --Pope. The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of what he was doing. --De Quincey. A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition. --G. Eliot.
\Pet"ri*fy\, v. i. 1. To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits. 2. Fig.: To become stony, callous, or obdurate. Like Niobe we marble grow, And petrify with grief. --Dryden.

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