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
"Apparently they just sort of die down and they calcify basically. So at this point they are now calcified."
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
McKellar: The show is also about how ideologies sort of calcify and end up alienating people, even though they have noble aspirations at the beginning.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2024
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
And the fact that this has been allowed for so long calcifies in the culture of Capitol Hill to the point that it’s just accepted.
From Slate ● Oct. 5, 2022
These questions and contradictions must be taken up before the narrative around these attacks calcifies into something more sinister.
From New York Times ● Mar. 6, 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
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
Still, credit the Administration for injecting more competition into a calcified U.S. defense industrial base.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
The resulting calcium score reflects the amount of detectable calcified plaque.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 12, 2026
After years of health struggles, the parasites have now calcified in Lowri's brain.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
The Wives’ appeal is in the way they challenge such calcified definitions of “traditional” gender roles.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
When José Arcadio Buendía and the four men of his expedition managed to take the armor apart, they found inside a calcified skeleton with a copper locket containing a woman’s hair around its neck.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Integrating calcifying plankton into climate models could offer sharper predictions and deeper insights into how ecosystems and societies may be affected."
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 2026
But amid the platitudes, sadness and shock is calcifying into anger and tension.
From BBC ● Dec. 21, 2025
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
The bitterness that he could pour into his words, rather than festering or calcifying on-screen, instead bloomed into something fully felt, vividly textured and often indescribably beautiful.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2023
Both lungs contained calcifying tubercle; the abdomen was loaded with fat; the spleen was soft; the kidneys were engorged, but otherwise healthy.
From Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by Walter L. (Walter Lytle) Pyle
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
