Pet"ri*fy (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Petrified (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Petrifying (?).] [L. petra rock, Gr. (akin to a stone) + -fy: cf. F. p'etrifier. Cf. Parrot, Petrel, Pier.]

1.

To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone or stony substance.

A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves. Kirwan.

2.

To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young.

"Petrifying accuracy."

Sir W. Scott.

And petrify a genius to a dunce. Pope.

The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of what he was doing. De Quincey.

A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition. G. Eliot.

 

© Webster 1913.


Pet"ri*fy, v. i.

1.

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

2.

Fig.: To become stony, callous, or obdurate.

Like Niobe we marble grow, And petrify with grief. Dryden.

 

© Webster 1913.

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