Petrify vs Ossify - What's the difference?
petrify | ossify |
To harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
* (and other bibliographic particulars) Kirwan
To produce rigidity akin to stone.
To immobilize with fright.
To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
(figurative) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
* (and other bibliographic particulars) Dryden
(figurative) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
* (and other bibliographic particulars) (Alexander Pope)
* (and other bibliographic particulars) (George Eliot)
(ambitransitive) To transform (or cause to transform) from a softer animal substance into bone; particularly the processes of growth in humans and animals.
* 1884 , Arthur C. Cole, Studies in Microscopical Science ,
(ambitransitive, animate) To become (or cause to become) inflexible and rigid in habits or opinions.
* 1996 , , The Art of the Long View , p. 96,
* 2006 , Michael S. Jones, Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and Contemporary Philosophy , p. 79,
(ambitransitive, inanimate) To grow (or cause to grow) formulaic and permanent.
* 1886 , ,
* 2001 , , translated by Kevin O'Neill and David Suchoff, The Wisdom of Love , p. 55,
* 2005 , Michelle Goldberg, "
(rare) To calcify.
* 1850 , ,
As verbs the difference between petrify and ossify
is that petrify is to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals while ossify is to transform (or cause to transform) from a softer animal substance into bone; particularly the processes of growth in humans and animals.petrify
English
Verb
- a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves
- Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.
- petrify a genius to a dunce
- A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition.
Synonyms
* See alsoossify
English
Verb
(en-verb)p. 35,
- , nor do all bones of the same skeleton ossify during the sam? period of time.
- Before long, the entire organization ossifies .
- Possession of absolute knowledge would ossify the human spirit, quenching human creativity;
- This accidental repartition gets repeated, develops advantages of its own, and gradually ossifies into a systematic division of labour.
- Now, in turn, we apply a revolutionary critique that ossifies into a rhetoric to become "the monstrous Latin of a monstrous church."
The war on 'Munich'", Salon.com , December 20, 2005,
- [T]he charge threatens to ossify into conventional wisdom before the movie's audience can get to theaters to see how misguided it is.
- The cartilages become brittle, and in many instances are ossified ; the ligaments are rendered harder, but are less capable of resisting extension.