- transitive verb
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- to convert into stone or a stony substance
- to benumb or paralyze with astonishment, horror, or other strong emotion: I was petrified with fear.
- to make rigid or inert; harden; deaden: The tragedy in his life petrified his emotions.
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- verb
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- take away power to feel through terror; turn to stone [Barron]
- to make hard, rocklike [Nandigam]
More word meanings for petrify
from leading online dictionaries:
- Wiktionary:
- petrify @ wiktionary
- WordNet:
- petrify @ wordnet.princeton.edu
- Merriam-Webster Online:
- petrify @ M-W.com
- MSN Encarta:
- petrify @ Encarta
- American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
- petrify @ AHD provided by Yahoo! Education
- Answers.com:
- petrify @ Answers.com
- Search for more definitions on Google:
- Google define:petrify
- Search for more definitions on Yahoo!:
- Yahoo! define:petrify
- Search for more definitions on Ask.com:
- Ask.com dictionary: petrify