silicify

American  

[suh-lis-uh-fahy] / səˈlɪs əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with or without object)

silicified, silicifying

1. to convert or be converted into silica.

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silicify British  

/ sɪˈlɪsɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. to convert or be converted into silica

   silicified wood

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Other Word Forms

• silicification
  noun
• unsilicified
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of silicify

First recorded in 1820–30; silic(a) + -ify

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

silicify silicified

This material, as is well known, is very liable to disintegrate, and the remedy is to silicify it.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 by William Chambers

At one point in the coast range great prostrate silicified trunks of fir trees were very numerous, embedded in a conglomerate.

From The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure by Sir John Alexander Hammerton

There was too much silica on Uller, and not enough of anything else; what would be coal-seams on Terra were strata of silicified wood.

From Uller Uprising by John D. Clark

When we ascend the Rovuma about sixty miles, a great many pieces and blocks of silicified wood appear on the surface of the soil at the bottom of the slope up the plateaux.

From The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 by Horace Waller

Near Weymouth, in the well-known dirt beds, are found trees with their silicified trunks growing up in the position of nature, and their roots embedded in the soil on which they grew.

From An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" With a Notice of the Author's "Explanations:" A Sequel to the Vestiges by Anonymous

Spicules of sponges and fragments of other organisms, such as molluscs, polyzoa, foraminifera and brachiopods, often occur in flint, and may be partly or wholly silicified with retention of their original structure.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various

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