fossilize

• fossilise

fossil +‎ -ize

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɒs.ɪl.aɪz/, /ˈfɒsl̩aɪz/

fossilize (third-person singular simple present fossilizes, present participle fossilizing, simple past and past participle fossilized)

1. (transitive) to make into a fossil
   • 1989, Grant Naylor, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

     Most of the booths had been scooped clean by the scalpel-sharp corner of the glacier in the crash. Three remained. Two of them were punctured and, inside, the once-human occupants had been fossilized into the walls by centuries upon centuries of patient ice.

2. (intransitive) to become a fossil
3. (figuratively, by extension, intransitive) to become inflexible or outmoded
4. (figuratively, by extension, transitive) To make antiquated, rigid, or fixed; to deaden.
   • Elizabeth Browning

     Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head / Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth.

• (To become a fossil): fossilate (dated), fossilify (dated)

• fossilization