mummify

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to preserve a dead body by drying, embalming, and wrapping it as a mummy

   Ancient embalmers used salts and resins to mummify the body.

2. 2
   verb

   to become or make something dried and shriveled like a mummy

   The desert air can mummify an animal's remains before they decay.

3. 3
   verb

   to preserve something so rigidly that it loses vitality or the ability to change

   Critics feared that strict rules would mummify the living tradition.

Formed from mummy + -ify, the verb-forming suffix meaning "make or become." Mummy entered English through Medieval Latin and Old French from Arabic mumiya, ultimately related to Persian mum ("wax"), a substance associated with embalmed remains.

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