anchylosis

Noun

ankylosis (countable and uncountable, plural ankyloses)

1. The growing together of bones to form a single unit.
2. The stiffening of a joint as the result of such abnormal fusion.
3. (figuratively) An onset of stiffness or inflexibility.
   • Yet in using the word democracy, one must plead for a distinction, or, better, a reversion, indicated by the curious anchylosis that, at a certain point in their maturity, usually sets in upon words newly put in use to express some august and large spiritual reality.1914, Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It, introduction