DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan
Pet·ri·fy v. t. [imp. & p. p. Petrified p. pr. & vb. n. Petrifying ]
1. To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone or stony substance; as, petrified wood.
A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves. --Kirwan.
2. To make callous or obdurate; to transform, as by petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young. “Petrifying accuracy.”
And petrify a genius to a dunce. --Pope.
A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition. --G. Eliot.
The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of what he was doing. --De Quincey.
petrify
v 1: cause to become stone-like or stiff or dazed and stunned;
"The horror petrified his feelings"; "Fear petrified her
thinking"
2: change into stone; "the wood petrified with time" [syn: lapidify]
3: make rigid and set into a conventional pattern; "rigidify
the training schedule"; "ossified teaching methods";
"slogans petrify our thinking" [syn: rigidify, ossify]
[also: petrified]
petrified
adj 1: converted into stone
2: converted into a mineral; "petrified wood" [syn: mineralized]
3: so frightened as to be unable to move; stunned or paralyzed
with terror; "petrified with fear"; "she was petrified by
the eerie sound"; "too numb with fear to move" [syn: numb]