petrify

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to make someone so frightened that they cannot move or think clearly

   The sudden crash seemed to petrify everyone in the dark hallway.

2. 2
   verb

   to turn organic matter into a stonelike substance through mineral replacement, or to become stone in this way

   Mineral-rich groundwater can petrify buried wood over a long period.

3. 3
   verb

   figurative: to make an idea, institution, or habit rigid and resistant to change

   A ban on criticism can petrify a living tradition into empty dogma.

From Middle French petrifier and Medieval Latin petrificare, 'make into stone,' built from Latin petra, 'rock,' from Greek petra, + facere, 'make.' The fear sense imagines terror making a person rigid like stone; the institutional sense extends the same image to ideas and customs.

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