Thesaurus: petrify

Related headwords

Definitions

1. v. t. To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone or stony substance.
2. v. t. To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young.
3. v. i. To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
4. v. i. Fig.: To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
5. v. cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned from fright
6. v. change into stone
7. v. make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
8. 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. 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.
9. v:100 v. cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned