to turn to stone
10
7.7
- idiom
- Literature
:
convertirse en piedra
- In the old tale, anyone who dared to look at the giant would turn to stone instantly.
- face turns to stone
- heart turned to stone
- body turned to stone
Examples
-
When Right Hand heard of his brother's adventures, his face turned to stone.
Fiction book (1993) -
You are turning to stone.
-
Girl, I almost turned to stone.
-
Suddenly everything living began to turn to stone.
-
My darling son has already turned to stone.
Fiction book (1999) -
Your flesh is turning to stone.
-
Beneath her fingers, he seemed to turn to stone.
Fiction book (1990) -
One look in her eyes 'and you'll turn to stone.'
-
But now he's turned to stone.
-
We watch Chen's face turn to stone.
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
890
2.2
To change into something different or make something change
To change into stone
Antonyms
How Motionless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'turn' (change into) combined with 'stone' (rock/hard material) yields 'change into stone' or become rigid/petrified, so a learner who knows the parts can infer the sense. The construction is cross-linguistically common (similar to 'turn into stone') and follows normal verb + result noun patterns, making it transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The phrase turn to stone may come from an old story about Medusa, whose look was said to change a person into a stone statue. So today turn to stone means to 'become motionless' or to 'freeze with fear'.