petrify

From Middle French pétrifier, from Medieval Latin petrificare, from Latin petra (“rock”) + -ficare from facere (“do, make”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/

petrified tree Kirstenbosch Cape Town

petrify (third-person singular simple present petrifies, present participle petrifying, simple past and past participle petrified)

1. To harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Kirwan

     a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves

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, figuratively) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden

     Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.

6. (transitive, figuratively) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

     petrify a genius to a dunce

   • (Can we date this quote?) George Eliot

     A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.

• See also Thesaurus:frighten

• petrifaction