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.