ossify

American  

[os-uh-fahy] / ˈɒs əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

ossified, ossifying

1. to convert into or cause to harden like bone.

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verb (used without object)

ossified, ossifying

1. to become bone or harden like bone.

2. to become rigid or inflexible in habits, attitudes, opinions, etc..

   a young man who began to ossify right after college.

ossify British  

/ ˈɒsɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. to convert or be converted into bone

2. (intr) (of habits, attitudes, etc) to become inflexible

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Other Word Forms

• ossifier
  noun
• unossifying
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of ossify

1705–15; < Latin ossi- (stem of os ) bone + -fy

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Explanation

Ossify means to become bony. When a baby is born, some of their "bones" are actually soft cartilage, which allows for growth. As the child grows, these soft areas ossify into actual bone. The knee cap, for example, begins to ossify between ages 3 and 6. From the literal "to become bony" meaning of ossify, we get the more figurative meaning: to become rigid or hardened. Although you and other young people may be willing to effect social changes, many older voters have ossified in their opinions. Convincing these rigid thinkers that these changes are good for the country will be quite the challenge. If your kids sneak food to their rooms, you may find ossified cheese under the beds. Even mice won't touch that!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ossify ossified ossifying

The risk is that such a containment policy could ossify into a stalemate that the regime will claim as a win.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026

Or am I about to do something that is going to reinforce these divisions and ossify the boundaries between people?

From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2023

We know, for example, that when you hit your 60s and 70s, vocal folds weaken, cartilage in the larynx begins to ossify and respiratory systems that power voices start to work less efficiently.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2021

Nadal, who has a longstanding foot problem because his navicular bone did not correctly ossify during childhood, was upbeat about his progress after his loss to Harris.

From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2021

Then the cartilaginous vertebræ ossify and form a true backbone.

From The Whence and the Whither of Man A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895 by John Mason Tyler

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

Nor can you, apparently, be a successful, divorced, outspoken biracial American career woman and thrive among the hierarchically ossified, stiff-upper-lip royal family.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2023

There are the ossified standbys—YouTube, TikTok, Instagram—platforms that are lucky enough to be piloted by someone who does not possess Musk’s deeply unserious, mean-spirited disposition.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2023

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

From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2023

Merely rational thought—forgive me for preaching, but I must, I must!—merely rational thought leaves the mind incurably crippled in a closed and ossified system, it can only extrapolate from the past.

From "Grendel" by John Gardner

It manifests now in a brittleness that tints their everyday exchanges as ossifying empty nesters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026

In the years before the pandemic, many economists fretted about the declining rate of turnover, which they worried was a sign of an increasingly stagnant, even ossifying labor market.

From New York Times ● Jan. 3, 2023

“It amounts to ossifying the damage that DeJoy managed to do over the last year,” they said.

From Slate ● Mar. 23, 2021

Instead of ossifying into an autocratic force, Kerala’s communists embraced electoral politics and since 1957 have been routinely voted into power.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2017

The ossifying conviction that he was living out some ancient and preordained plan, encoded in his blood, built into the architecture of his name.

From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner

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