petrify
Verb
Verb Forms: petrified, petrifying, petrifies
- To convert into stone; to paralyze with fear or astonishment.
- cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned
- change into stone
- make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
- "slogans petrify our thinking"
- To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
- To produce rigidity akin to stone.
- To immobilize with fright.
- To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
- To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
- To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
Examples
- His opponent’s unexpected triple-triple bingo seemed to PETRIFY him for a moment.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle French pétrifier, from Medieval Latin petrificāre, from Latin petra (“rock”), from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”) + -ficāre, from facere (“do, make”), equivalent to petro- + -ify.
Synonyms
lapidify, ossify, rigidify, affright, alarm, appall, dismay, fray, frighten, give someone the shits, grill, harrow, horrify, make someone's blood run cold, petrify, scare, scare straight, scare the bejeebers out of, scare the pants off of, spook, terrify, terrorize
Scrabble Score: 15
petrify: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordpetrify: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
petrify: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary