online medical dictionary | definition of 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." "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)

Origin: L. Petra rock, Gr. (akin to a stone) + -fy: cf. F. Petrifier. Cf. Parrot, Petrel, Pier.

(01 Mar 1998)