fossilized
Americanadjective
-
(of the remains of an organism) having organic substances replaced with mineral ones; converted into a fossil.
-
rigidly antiquated.
-
having become the lifeless or disused remains of something; being merely a trace of the past.
Other Word Forms
- nonfossilized adjective
- semi-fossilized adjective
- unfossilized adjective
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.
Over time, more bees followed, using these natural cavities inside fossilized bones as ready-made nesting sites.
From Science Daily • Apr. 3, 2026
This was a fossilized program taking on a divisive, peripatetic local who’d pledged his prior job was going to be his “last job.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 23, 2026
For many years, paleontologists have studied annual growth rings preserved inside the fossilized leg bones of Tyrannosaurus rex.
From Science Daily • Mar. 5, 2026
Brian Hebert, an avocational paleontologist from Nova Scotia, located the small skull inside a fossilized tree stump during a field season led by Hillary Maddin, a professor of paleontology at Carleton University.
From Science Daily • Feb. 11, 2026
Other bones and fossilized footprints were found in the Connecticut River Valley of New England after a farm boy named Plinus Moody spied ancient tracks on a rock ledge at South Hadley, Massachusetts.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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.
