petrify

petrify
    v 1: cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned;
         "The horror petrified his feelings"; "Fear petrified her
         thinking"
    2: change into stone; "the wood petrified with time" [syn:
       {lapidify}, {petrify}]
    3: make rigid and set into a conventional pattern; "rigidify the
       training schedule"; "ossified teaching methods"; "slogans
       petrify our thinking" [syn: {rigidify}, {ossify}, {petrify}]
    

Petrify \Pet"ri*fy\ (p[e^]t"r[i^]*f[imac]), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
   {Petrified}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Petrifying}.] [L. petra rock,
   Gr. pe`tra (akin to pe`tros 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; as, petrified wood.
      [1913 Webster]

            A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves.
                                                  --Kirwan.
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   2. To make callous or obdurate; to transform, as by
      petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young. "Petrifying
      accuracy." --Sir W. Scott.
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            And petrify a genius to a dunce.      --Pope.
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            A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to
            petrify your volition.                --G. Eliot.
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   3. To paralyze, especially with fear; to stupefy; as, she was
      petrified by the sight of the bear in her tent.
      [PJC]

            The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of
            what he was doing.                    --De Quincey.
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Petrify \Pet"ri*fy\, v. i.
   1. To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter
      by calcareous deposits.
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   2. Fig.: To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
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            Like Niobe we marble grow,
            And petrify with grief.               --Dryden.
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62 Moby Thesaurus words for "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