FOSSILIZE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fossilize mean? 

• FOSSILIZE (verb)
  The verb FOSSILIZE has 2 senses:

1. convert to a fossil

2. become mentally inflexible

  Familiarity information: FOSSILIZE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOSSILIZE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they fossilize    ... he / she / it fossilizes   
Past simple: fossilized   
Past participle: fossilized   
-ing form: fossilizing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Convert to a fossil

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

fossilise; fossilize

Context example:

The little animals fossilized and are now embedded in the limestone

Hypernyms (to "fossilize" is one way to...):

convert (change the nature, purpose, or function of something)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "fossilize"):

lapidify; petrify (change into stone)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something ----s something

Derivation:

fossil (the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that existed in a past geological age and that has been excavated from the soil)

fossilization (the process of fossilizing a plant or animal that existed in some earlier age; the process of being turned to stone)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Become mentally inflexible

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

fossilise; fossilize

Hypernyms (to "fossilize" is one way to...):

age; get on; maturate; mature; senesce (grow old or older)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

 Context examples 

"It's not the absence of oxygen that allows them to be preserved and fossilized. It's the presence of oxygen under the right circumstances."

(Fossils may need air to form, National Science Foundation)

While this allows them to be fast swimmers, it also means their skeletons often rot away instead of fossilizing.

(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

The earliest evidence for life on Earth is of fossilized bacteria that are between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years old - a time when the solar system was being bombarded by meteorites.

(Life Could Exist on Moon 4 Billion Years Ago, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

During their primordial migration out of Africa, ancestors of present-day humans are thought to have interbred with Neanderthals, whose brain characteristics can be inferred from their fossilized skulls.

(“Residual echo” of ancient humans in scans may hold clues to mental disorders, National Institutes of Health)

The single fossilized bone fragment, about two centimetres (less than an inch) long, which researchers said was from a girl at least 13 years old, was found in 2012 in the Denisova Cave in Siberia.

(Fossil genome shows hybrid of two extinct species of human, Wikinews)

In other studies, apart from the possible contamination of samples with archaea from adjacent lands, these mineral particles may have been interpreted as fossilized cells, when in reality they form spontaneously in the brines even though there is no life.

(Place discovered on earth with no microbial life, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A team of researchers from China, Canada, the United States, and Australia published on Wednesday their discovery of an early fossilized baby snake, reportedly the oldest ever found, in a piece of amber in the middle of a sandstone deposit in Myanmar.

(Cretaceous baby snake fossil found in Myanmar, Wikinews)