ossify

American  

[os-uh-fahy] / ˈɒs əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

ossified, ossifying

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

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

• ossifier noun
• unossifying adjective

Etymology

Origin of ossify

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

Example Sentences

The proposed cleanup and redevelopment of this ossified power plant joins a growing collection of such projects across the nation.

From New York Times

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

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

From Salon

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

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