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

Etymology

Origin of ossify

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

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

Ossification begins in the lateral flanges, then in the prevomerine processes, and lastly in the posterior dentigerous parts of the bones; the prevomerine processes are the last parts of the vomers to ossify completely.

From Neotropical Hylid Frogs, Genus Smilisca by William E. Duellman

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

Unlike the ossified networks, DePetro is free to churn out content whenever he wants, for an audience keen to follow the investigation through 90-second updates.

From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026

Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda have become ossified, Fitzgerald said, more intellectual property in a billion-dollar franchise than human beings evolving in organic ways.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 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

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

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026

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

From Slate ● Mar. 23, 2021

That change of policy tack may jar ossifying market expectations.

From Reuters ● Aug. 3, 2016

A more positive and pragmatic idea of iconic men might be those whom we admire for their exceptional work, without either expecting them to be superhuman or ossifying them as a symbol.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2013

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