calcify
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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calcifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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calcified,
past participle, past
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calcifying
present participle
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Physiology. to make or become calcareous or bony; harden by the deposit of calcium salts.
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Geology. to harden by deposition of calcium carbonate.
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to make or become rigid or intransigent, as in a political position.
verb
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to convert or be converted into lime
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to harden or become hardened by impregnation with calcium salts
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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calcifysimple
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calcifiessimple
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have calcifiedperfect
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has calcifiedperfect
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am calcifyingprogressive
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are calcifyingprogressive
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is calcifyingprogressive
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have been calcifyingperfect progressive
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has been calcifyingperfect progressive
Past
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calcifiedsimple
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had calcifiedperfect
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was calcifyingprogressive
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were calcifyingprogressive
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had been calcifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of calcify
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The late economist Mancur Olson described the danger that, in democracies, interest groups proliferate that cause the government to calcify until it is unable to act.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
It’s McKellen reveling in a great role: charmingly funny but also bittersweet in the film’s examination of how fading fame can calcify one’s soul.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026
But he said their stance "began to calcify into a sort of defensiveness".
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
Unlike medaka, the zebrafish form a transient scar that doesn't calcify into rigid tissue.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 18, 2024
With each month of silence that passed between them, she felt the silence itself calcify, and become a hard and hulking statue, impossible to defeat.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Networking isn’t like traditional manufacturing or energy infrastructure where market share calcifies over decades.
From Barron's ● Nov. 26, 2025
Boredom sometimes calcifies into loneliness, and for Daisy, the birds seemed to fix a problem I didn’t even know she had.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2021
Emotions often drive reasoning, so as our hearts harden, our thinking also calcifies, and we become dogmatic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2016
This exclusion not only calcifies economic and professional immobility, but it also insulates these industries from the full diversity of voices society has to offer.
From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2014
The center partly softens and partly calcifies into a grayish mortarlike mass, and is gritty.
From Special Report on Diseases of Cattle by United States. Bureau of Animal Industry
But they’d calcified and become larger, causing inflammation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
"Apparently they just sort of die down and they calcify basically. So at this point they are now calcified."
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
The later denial of his motion did not cool his grievances, but calcified them.
From Slate ● May 28, 2026
It preserves three dimensional skin, calcified cartilage, and even traces of proteins.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 23, 2026
Or has she calcified her feelings, protected herself, as he is learning to do?
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
The study also emphasizes that not all calcifying plankton behave the same way.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 2026
But amid the platitudes, sadness and shock is calcifying into anger and tension.
From BBC ● Dec. 21, 2025
Though I continue to scan them, all those “Best” lists do as much harm as good, calcifying the notion that the lower the acceptance rate and the higher the price, the better the school.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2024
They know that, in special compartments, corals concentrate ions along with proteins and other molecules to make a slurry known as calcifying fluid.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 24, 2023
Cal′cificā′tion, the process of calcifying, a changing into lime.—adjs.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
