petrify
(verb)
verb
1. cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned from fright
- The horror petrified his feelings
- Fear petrified her thinking
Definition categories: change, blunt, deaden
2. change into stone
- the wood petrified with time
Similar word(s): lapidify
Definition categories: change, fossilise, fossilize
3. make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
- slogans petrify our thinking