petrify
    v 1: cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned;
         "The horror petrified his feelings"; "Fear petrified her
         thinking"
    2: change into stone; "the wood petrified with time" [syn:
       lapidify, petrify]
    3: make rigid and set into a conventional pattern; "rigidify the
       training schedule"; "ossified teaching methods"; "slogans
       petrify our thinking" [syn: rigidify, ossify, petrify]

Petrify \Pet"ri*fy\ (p[e^]t"r[i^]*f[imac]), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
   Petrified; p. pr. & vb. n. Petrifying.] [L. petra rock,
   Gr. pe`tra (akin to pe`tros a stone) + -fy: cf. F.
   p['e]trifier. Cf. Parrot, Petrel, Pier.]
   1. To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone
      or stony substance; as, petrified wood.
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            A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves.
                                                  --Kirwan.
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   2. To make callous or obdurate; to transform, as by
      petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young. "Petrifying
      accuracy." --Sir W. Scott.
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            And petrify a genius to a dunce.      --Pope.
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            A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to
            petrify your volition.                --G. Eliot.
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   3. To paralyze, especially with fear; to stupefy; as, she was
      petrified by the sight of the bear in her tent.
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            The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of
            what he was doing.                    --De Quincey.
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Petrify \Pet"ri*fy\, v. i.
   1. To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter
      by calcareous deposits.
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   2. Fig.: To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
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            Like Niobe we marble grow,
            And petrify with grief.               --Dryden.
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