Word.ws English Dictionary

petrifies

petrifies is the third-person singular simple present indicative of petrify.

Meaning of petrify

Verb

petrify (third-person singular simple present petrifies, present participle petrifying, simple past and past participle petrified)

  1. (transitive) To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
    • a river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves1799, Richard Kirwan, Geological Essays
  2. To produce rigidity akin to stone.
  3. To immobilize with fright.
  4. (intransitive) To become stone, or of a stony hardness, as organic matter by calcareous deposits.
  5. (figuratively, intransitive) To become stony, callous, or obdurate.
    • Like Niobe we marble grow, / And petrify with grief.1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis
  6. (figuratively, transitive) To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrification.
    • petrify a genius to a dunce1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC

Questions about petrifies

What is petrifies the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Petrifies is the third-person singular simple present indicative of petrify.

Words near petrifies in the dictionary

  1. petrificious
  2. petrified
  3. petrified carpentry
  4. petrifier
  5. petrifiers
  6. petrifies
  7. petrify
  8. petrifying
  9. Petrijanec
  10. Petrijevci
  11. Petrik

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petrifies (page history and authors); petrify (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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