petrify

petrifyverb/ˈpɛ.tɹəˌfaɪ/

• 1

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

  • a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves
• 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.

• 5

  To become stony, callous, or obdurate.

  • Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.
  • Hopes, feelings, and passion, petrify one after another; the crust of experience soon hardens over the hidden past; and who, looking on the levelled and subdued exterior, could dream of the wreck and ravage that lies below?
• 6

  To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.

  • petrify a genius to a dunce
  • A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.