Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A process of fossilization in which dissolved minerals replace organic matter.
- n. The state of being stunned or paralyzed with fear.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Conversion into stone, specifically of organic substances or parts of such: fossilization; replacement of organic matter by some mineral substance, in which process more or less of the form and structure of the organized body is preserved.
- n. An organic substance converted into stone; a fossil. The words petrifaction and fossil are entirely synonymous at the present time. Formerly
fossil was applied to minerals or mineral substances dug from the earth. whether they did or did not exhibit any traces of organic structure. Seefossil . - n. Figuratively, a rigid or stunned condition resulting from fear, astonishment, etc.
Wiktionary
- n. the condition of being petrified
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The process of petrifying, or changing into stone; conversion of any organic matter (animal or vegetable) into stone, or a substance of stony hardness.
- n. The state or condition of being petrified.
- n. That which is petrified; popularly, a body incrusted with stony matter; an incrustation.
- n. Fig.: Hardness; callousness; obduracy.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the process of turning some plant material into stone by infiltration with water carrying mineral particles without changing the original shape
- n. a rock created by petrifaction; an organic object infiltrated with mineral matter and preserved in its original form
Examples
“The same kind of petrifaction is to be seen, it is said, at the hot springs of”
“Akin to the foregoing condition is what is known as petrifaction or ossification of portions of the living human body other than the articulations.”
“A petrifaction was a kind of a hard-wood chemical git-up.”
“It lies in a certain deliberate "petrifaction" of the human soul in us; a certain glacial detachment from all interests save one; a certain frigid insanity of preoccupation with our own emotion.”
“petrifaction" theory has found among the mass of visitors -- even including many men of intelligence and general education.”
“Yet all three animals were keyed to a tenseness of living that was almost painful, and scarcely ever would it come to them to be more alive than they were then in their seeming petrifaction.”
“This dynamic process allows for the ability to translate the original text, thus giving that text a flexibility which refuses its petrifaction.”
“The trees, burdened with the last infinitesimal pennyweight of snow their branches could hold, stood in absolute petrifaction.”
“Before the success of Empire of the Sun Ballard was known principally for darkly surreal novels such as The Crystal World (1966), which described a West African country undergoing an inexplicable process of petrifaction, and Crash (1973), in which he put forward the idea that modern society finds traffic accidents erotic.”
“Our history follows its own laws, maintaining its innermost tendencies in the face of the outward dangers of dispersal, disintegration, secularization, and moral and religious petrifaction.”
The Huffington Post: David Shasha: Dangerous Mystic Motifs in Judaism
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘petrifaction’.
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A Rarefaction of Factoids
List of genuine words and phrases containing the string fact-, -fact-, or -fact. Beginning with ventifact and stupefaction.
ventifact, stupefaction, fact, factoid, rarefaction, unsatisfactory, satisfactory, tumefaction, surfactant, artifact, benefactor, benefaction and 142 more...
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A Hardening or Hardness
Words meaning a hardening or hardness.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for petrifaction.
yarb Citation on pung. Apr 3, 2010