fossilize

verb

Etymology: Etymology tree English fossil Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English fossilize From fossil + -ize.

1. To make into a fossil.

   “Most of the booths had been scooped clean by the scalpel-sharp corner of the glacier in the crash. Three remained. Two of them were punctured and, inside, the once-human occupants had been fossilized into the walls by centuries upon centuries of patient ice.”

2. To become a fossil.
3. To become inflexible or outmoded.

   “I was getting fossilised myself, but of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged.”

4. To make antiquated, rigid, or fixed; to deaden.

   “Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head / Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth.”

   “I'll meet you again Blanketed in soil Fossilized in photographs”