seize up

Verb

seize up (third-person singular simple present seizes up, present participle seizing up, simple past and past participle seized up)

1. (figuratively, intransitive) To stop functioning; to come to a halt.
   • Iceland's foreign currency market has seized up after the three largest banks collapsed.
   • In the 2004 film A Day Without a Mexican, Sergio Arau imagines, in mockumentary style, what would happen to California if its entire Mexican-immigrant population vanished. With so many housekeepers and farmworkers, teachers and gardeners, line cooks and police gone, the state seizes up.2021 October 5, Ian Bogost, “A Day Without Facebook”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2021

   Synonyms:

   freeze, freeze up, grind to a halt

2. (intransitive) To stiffen or become tight and difficult to move.
   • It was hard to write as my fingers had seized up with the cold weather.
   • I have had over six years to think about my future and it does not look good. I … can expect no cure or improvement in my condition as my muscles and joints seize up through lack of use.2012 June 19, Amelia Hill, quoting Tony Nicklinson, “Man with locked-in syndrome calls for change to murder law”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2019
3. (intransitive) To stop working suddenly, and become impossible to start again.
   • My car seized up this morning. So I had to catch the bus.