ossify — English Dictionary

Verb

1. To transform (or cause to transform) from a softer animal substance into bone; particularly the processes of growth in humans and animals.

   Usage

   • Transitive or intransitive

   Antonyms

   deossify

   Examples

   […], nor do all bones of the same skeleton ossify during the samе period of time.

2. To become (or cause to become) inflexible and rigid in habits or opinions.

   Usage

   • Transitive or intransitive
   • animate

   Synonyms

   harden

   Examples

   Before long, the entire organization ossifies.

   Possession of absolute knowledge would ossify the human spirit, quenching human creativity;

3. To grow (or cause to grow) formulaic and permanent.

   Usage

   • Transitive or intransitive
   • inanimate

   Examples

   This accidental repartition gets repeated, develops advantages of its own, and gradually ossifies into a systematic division of labour.

   Now, in turn, we apply a revolutionary critique that […] ossifies into a rhetoric to become "the monstrous Latin of a monstrous church."

   More examples (1)

   [T]he charge threatens to ossify into conventional wisdom before the movie's audience can get to theaters to see how misguided it is.

4. To calcify.

   Usage

   • Rare

   Examples

   The cartilages become brittle, and in many instances are ossified; the ligaments are rendered harder, but are less capable of resisting extension.

Verb

1. become bony

   Broader terms

   change stateturn

   Examples

   The tissue ossified

2. make rigid and set into a conventional pattern

   Synonyms

   rigidifypetrify

   Broader terms

   stiffen

   Examples

   rigidify the training schedule

   ossified teaching methods

   More examples (1)

   slogans petrify our thinking

3. cause to become hard and bony

   Broader terms

   changealtermodify

   Examples

   The disease ossified the tissue