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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

petrify.

To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/US
  1. To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.

    transitive
  2. To produce rigidity akin to stone.

  3. To immobilize with fright.

  4. To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.

    intransitive
  5. To become stony, callous, or obdurate.

    figuratively · intransitive
  6. To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.

    figuratively · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle French pétrifier, from Medieval Latin petrificāre, from Latin petra (“rock”), from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”) + -ficāre, from facere (“do, make”), equivalent to petro- + -ify.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.