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😱 To scare greatly 🪨 To turn to stone 🧱 To make rigid
to petrify

to petrify

1 6.7
To make something unable to change by keeping it in old ways
  • verb
  • /ˈpɛtrɪˌfaɪ/
translation icon : petrificar
  • The sudden loud noise seemed to petrify the audience, leaving them unable to react.

Examples

  • Evidently, her heart had petrified, for it did not so much as tremble.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • It's just, it's got everything frozen and petrified in the in ancient processes because they can't move forward financially.

  • The process petrifies the snow within a day or two; rendered stiff, the snow remains in place for the balance of the winter.

    Academic text (2011)

  • The strangeness and boredom seemed to petrify her brain, and she could not take anything in.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The group's overall mission was likewise to embrace popular imagery without petrifying it.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Her whole body still strives outwards; her lips, her breasts, her thighs—her whole body has not yet decided to stop, to petrify, to crumble.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Perhaps it was wiser to marvel at myself: stale, changeless, unmarked by any passion—petrified deep in the amber of time.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • The long-standing traditions of the organization petrify its practices, making change nearly impossible.

  • Her conservative views petrified the company's approach to innovation, stifling new ideas.

Synonyms

to lock
vsto petrify
398 2.5

To become stiff and unable to move a part of the body

applies to setting into a conventional patterned rigidity rather than mechanical holding
to ossify
vsto petrify
1 9.5

Become fixed or make something fixed and refuse to change

is about becoming set in conventional patterns rather than merely stiff or physical
to calcify
vsto petrify
  • Formal
1 8.4

Become fixed and hard to change, especially in ideas or rules

focuses on fixing into conventional or habitual patterns rather than general inflexibility
to rigidify
vsto petrify
1 8.2

To make something stiff and unable to bend or change

is more about fixing into unchanging conventional patterns rather than general stiffness

Antonyms

to adapt
178 3.2

To change something so it fits a new use or situation

to liberate
104 4.3

Set someone free from prison or unfair control

How Rigid

to ossify
1 9.5
to petrify
1 6.7
to fix
218 1.0
to stiffen
25 3.7

Surface Forms

petrify infinitive
petrified past
petrified past participle
petrifying present participle
petrifies third person singular

Morphology

petrify = petr + ify

The sense 'make rigid or fixed' is a figurative extension of 'turn to stone'; because 'petr-' is not a familiar standalone English base, the composed parts do not allow a B1 learner to predict this meaning reliably.

Etymology

Petrify comes from the Greek root petra meaning 'rock', and it suggests being 'turned to stone' so something becomes hard and fixed. So when traditions or rules petrify, they become rigid and do not change.