WordWeb Online

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"
   - lapidify
    
3. Make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
   "slogans petrify our thinking"
   - rigidify, ossify

Derived forms: petrifying, petrifies, petrified

See also: petrifaction

Type of: blunt, deaden, fossilise [Brit], fossilize, stiffen

Encyclopedia: Petrify