| / English Dictionary |
PETRIFY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: petrified
I. (verb)
Verb forms
Present simple: I / you / we / they petrify ... he / she / it petrifies
Past simple: petrified
Past participle: petrified
-ing form: petrifying
Sense 1
Meaning:
Cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned from fright
Example:
Fear petrified her thinking
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "petrify" is one way to...):
blunt; deaden (make less lively, intense, or vigorous; impair in vigor, force, activity, or sensation)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s something
Sense 2
Meaning:
Make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
Example:
slogans petrify our thinking
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "petrify" is one way to...):
stiffen (make stiff or stiffer)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s something
Sense 3
Meaning:
Change into stone
Example:
the wood petrified with time
Synonyms:
lapidify; petrify
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "petrify" is one way to...):
fossilise; fossilize (convert to a fossil)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s something
Derivation:
petrifaction (a rock created by petrifaction; an organic object infiltrated with mineral matter and preserved in its original form)
petrifaction; petrification (the process of turning some plant material into stone by infiltration with water carrying mineral particles without changing the original shape)
Context examples:
Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
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