petrify
Pronunciation
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Pronunciation
- (America) IPA: /ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/
petrify (petrifies, present participle petrifying; past and past participle petrified)
- To harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
- a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves
- To produce rigidity akin to stone.
- To immobilize with fright.
- (intransitive) To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
- (intransitive, figurative) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
- Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.
- (transitive, figurative) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
- 1728, [Alexander Pope], “(
please specify )”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. In Three Books, Dublin; London: Reprinted for A. Dodd, OCLC 1033416756 ↗: - A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.
- See also Thesaurus:frighten
- French: pétrifier
- German: versteinern
- Italian: pietrificare
- Portuguese: petrificar
- Russian: превраща́ть в ка́мень
- Spanish: petrificar
- French: pétrifier
- German: versteinern
- Portuguese: petrificar
- French: pétrifier
- German: erstarren
- Portuguese: petrificar
- Spanish: petrificar
- Russian: камене́ть
- Russian: камене́ть
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004