ossified

American  

[os-uh-fahyd] / ˈɒs əˌfaɪd /

adjective

1. hardened like or into bone.

2. Slang. drunk.

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ossified British  

/ ˈɒsɪˌfaɪd /

adjective

1. converted into bone

2. having become set and inflexible

3. slang intoxicated; drunk

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Other Word Forms

• unossified adjective

Etymology

Origin of ossified

First recorded in 1790–1800; ossify + -ed ²

Example Sentences

Like every other detail here, that implicit complaint is dusty and ossified, and Mr. Williamson’s formerly wised-up dialogue has been supplanted by a grinding earnestness, with everyone constantly asking about one another’s feelings.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026

Ironize forms — such as the oral history or the rockumentary — that have ossified?

From Washington Post • Mar. 3, 2023

Since then, the sprawling content business that the New York Times Book Review mystery columnist Sarah Weinman has called the true-crime industrial complex has matured and ossified.

From New York Times • Feb. 22, 2023

An ossified system can’t respond to hacks, and therefore has trouble evolving.

From Slate • Feb. 10, 2023

What’s more, unlike the paintings bequeathed to posterity by Constable or Rembrandt, his music has not ossified, frozen for ever in time.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall