freeze

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To pass from the liquid to the solid state by loss of heat.
2. v. To acquire a surface or coat of ice from cold: The lake froze over in January. Bridges freeze before the adjacent roads.
3. v. To become clogged or jammed because of the formation of ice: The pipes froze in the basement.
4. v. To be at that degree of temperature at which ice forms: It may freeze tonight.
5. v. To be killed or harmed by cold or frost: They almost froze to death. Mulch keeps garden plants from freezing.
6. v. To be or feel uncomfortably cold: Aren't you freezing without a coat?
7. v. To become fixed, stuck, or attached by or as if by frost: The lock froze up with rust.
8. v. To stop functioning properly, usually temporarily: My computer screen froze when I opened the infected program.
9. v. To become motionless or immobile, as from surprise or attentiveness: I heard a sound and froze in my tracks.
10. v. To become unable to act or speak, as from fear: froze in front of the audience.
11. v. To become rigid and inflexible; solidify: an opinion that froze into dogma.
12. v. To convert into ice.
13. v. To cause ice to form upon.
14. v. To cause to congeal or stiffen from extreme cold: winter cold that froze the ground.
15. v. To preserve (foods, for example) by subjecting to freezing temperatures.
16. v. To damage, kill, or make inoperative by cold or by the formation of ice.
17. v. To make very cold; chill.
18. v. To immobilize, as with fear or shock.
19. v. To chill with an icy or formal manner: froze me with one look.
20. v. To stop the motion or progress of: The negotiations were frozen by the refusal of either side to compromise.
21. v. To fix (prices or wages, for example) at a given or current level.
22. v. To prohibit further manufacture or use of.
23. v. To prevent or restrict the exchange, withdrawal, liquidation, or granting of by governmental action: freeze investment loans during a depression; froze foreign assets held by U.S. banks.
24. v. To capture or preserve a likeness of, as on film.
25. v. To photograph (a subject) in mid-action so as to produce a still image.
26. v. To stop (a moving film) at a particular image.
27. v. To anesthetize by chilling.
28. v. Sports To keep possession of (a ball or puck) so as to deny an opponent the opportunity to score.
29. n. The act of freezing.
30. n. The state of being frozen.
31. n. A spell of cold weather; a frost.
32. n. A restriction that forbids a quantity from rising above a given or current level: a freeze on city jobs; a proposed freeze on the production of nuclear weapons.
33. freeze out To shut out or exclude, as by cold or unfriendly treatment: The others tried to freeze me out of the conversation.
34. idiom. freeze (someone's) blood To affect with terror or dread; horrify: a scream that froze my blood.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To congeal; harden into ice; change from a fluid to a solid form by cold or abstraction of heat.
2. To affect with frost; stiffen, harden, injure, kill, etc., by congealing the fluid portions of; hence, to produce some analogous effect in.
3. As a knight of old, at the very moment when he would else have unhorsed his opponent, was often frozen into unjust inactivity by the king's arbitrary signal for parting the tilters.
4. To chill with cold; produce the sensation of intense cold in.
5. To be congealed by cold; be changed from a liquid to a solid state by the abstraction of heat; be hardened into ice or into a solid body by cold: as, water freezes at the temperature of 32° F.
6. To be of that degree of cold at which water congeals: often used impersonally to describe the state of the weather: as, it is freezing tonight.
7. To suffer the effects of intense cold; be stiffened, hardened, or impaired by cold.
8. Figuratively, to be or become chilled; suffer greatly from the sensation of cold.
9. To cause a sensation of great cold.
10. n. Frost or its results; chilling or freezing conditions: as, there was a strong freeze last night.
11. n. See frieze.

Wiktionary

1. n. A period of intensely cold weather.
2. n. A precise draw weight shot where a delivered stone comes to a stand-still against a stationary stone, making it nearly impossible to knock out.
3. n. A halt of a regular operation.
4. n. A block on pay rises.
5. v. Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature.
6. v. To lower something's temperature to the point that it freezes or becomes hard.
7. v. To drop to a temperature below zero degrees celsius, where water turns to ice.
8. v. To be affected by extreme cold.
9. v. To become motionless.
10. v. To lose or cause to lose warmth of feeling; to shut out; to ostracize.
11. v. To prevent the movement or liquidation of a person's financial assets

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A frieze.
2. v. To become congealed by cold; to be changed from a liquid to a solid state by the abstraction of heat; to be hardened into ice or a like solid body.
3. v. To become chilled with cold, or as with cold; to suffer loss of animation or life by lack of heat.
4. v. To congeal; to harden into ice; to convert from a fluid to a solid form by cold, or abstraction of heat.
5. v. To cause loss of animation or life in, from lack of heat; to give the sensation of cold to; to chill.
6. n. The act of congealing, or the state of being congealed.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. fixing (of prices or wages etc) at a particular level
2. n. weather cold enough to cause freezing
3. v. be very cold, below the freezing point
4. n. an interruption or temporary suspension of progress or movement
5. v. stop moving or become immobilized
6. v. anesthetize by cold
7. v. suddenly behave coldly and formally
8. v. stop a process or a habit by imposing a freeze on it
9. v. change from a liquid to a solid when cold
10. n. the withdrawal of heat to change something from a liquid to a solid
11. v. prohibit the conversion or use of (assets)
12. v. be cold
13. v. cause to freeze
14. v. change to ice