Word Meanings - PETRIFY - Book Publishers vocabulary database

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

Additional info about word: PETRIFY

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.

Related words: (words related to PETRIFY)

• STONEBRASH
  A subsoil made up of small stones or finely-broken rock; brash.
• ANIMALIZATION
  1. The act of animalizing; the giving of animal life, or endowing with animal properties. 2. Conversion into animal matter by the process of assimilation. Owen.
• CONVERTIBILITY
  The condition or quality of being convertible; capability of being exchanged; convertibleness. The mutual convertibility of land into money, and of money into land. Burke.
• ANIMALCULISM
  The theory which seeks to explain certain physiological and pathological by means of animalcules.
• SUBSTANCE
  To furnish or endow with substance; to supply property to; to make rich.
• ANIMALITY
  Animal existence or nature. Locke.
• MATTER
  1. To be of importance; to import; to signify. It matters not how they were called. Locke. 2. To form pus or matter, as an abscess; to maturate. "Each slight sore mattereth." Sir P. Sidney.
• STONEROOT
  A North American plant having a very hard root; horse balm. See Horse balm, under Horse.
• ANIMALLY
  Physically. G. Eliot.
• ANIMALNESS
  Animality.
• PARALYZE
  1. To affect or strike with paralysis or palsy. 2. Fig.: To unnerve; to destroy or impair the energy of; to render ineffective; as, the occurrence paralyzed the community; despondency paralyzed his efforts.
• STONY
  1. Of or pertaining to stone, consisting of, or abounding in, stone or stones; resembling stone; hard; as, a stony tower; a stony cave; stony ground; a stony crust. 2. Converting into stone; petrifying; petrific. The stony dart of senseless cold.
• ANIMALCULIST
  1. One versed in the knowledge of animalcules. Keith. 2. A believer in the theory of animalculism.
• ANIMAL
  1. An organized living being endowed with sensation and the power of voluntary motion, and also characterized by taking its food into an internal cavity or stomach for digestion; by giving carbonic acid to the air and taking oxygen in the process
• RIVER
  One who rives or splits.
• CONVERTIBLY
  In a convertible manner.
• STONE-STILL
  As still as a stone. Shak.
• STONE-BLIND
  As blind as a stone; completely blind.
• RIVERLING
  A rivulet. Sylvester.
• TRANSFORMATION
  The act of transforming, or the state of being transformed; change of form or condition. Specifically: --
• PITCHSTONE
  An igneous rock of semiglassy nature, having a luster like pitch.
• CAPSTONE
  A fossil echinus of the genus Cannulus; -- so called from its supposed resemblance to a cap.
• CLINKSTONE
  An igneous rock of feldspathic composition, lamellar in structure, and clinking under the hammer. See Phonolite.
• GRINDSTONE
  A flat, circular stone, revolving on an axle, for grinding or sharpening tools, or shaping or smoothing objects. To hold, pat, or bring one's nose to the grindstone, to oppress one; to keep one in a condition of servitude. They might be ashamed,
• MOORSTONE
  A species of English granite, used as a building stone.
• RUBSTONE
  A stone for scouring or rubbing; a whetstone; a rub.
• GRINDLE STONE
  A grindstone.
• EYESTONE
  Eye agate. See under Eye. (more info) 1. A small, lenticular, calcareous body, esp. an operculum of a small shell of the family Tubinid, used to remove a foreign sub stance from the eye. It is rut into the inner corner of the eye under the lid,
• INCONVERTED
  Not turned or changed about. Sir T. Browne.
• TURNSTONE
  Any species of limicoline birds of the genera Strepsilas and Arenaria, allied to the plovers, especially the common American and European species . They are so called from their habit of turning up small stones in search of mollusks and
• GALLSTONE
  A concretion, or calculus, formed in the gall bladder or biliary passages. See Calculus, n., 1.
• EAGLESTONE
  A concretionary nodule of clay ironstone, of the size of a walnut or larger, so called by the ancients, who believed that the eagle transported these stones to her nest to facilitate the laying of her eggs; aëtites.
• RECONVERTIBLE
  Capable of being reconverted; convertible again to the original form or condition.
• CROSS-STONE
  See STAUROTIDE